A vacation division bench of the high court on Thursday directed the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to inspect La Martiniere for Boys and La Martiniere for Girls so the schools can be granted permission for necessary repairs.

The division bench of justices Ravi Krishan Kapur and Supratim Bhattacharya told the KMC to inspect the schools by Sunday.

The state heritage commission and the KMC inspected the schools on June 2.

The emergency inspection was ordered by a vacation bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh on May 30 after a portion of a 40ft high ceiling crashed in the boys’ school.

The inspection report was to be submitted to the court on June 5.

On Thursday, the school’s counsel said the building where the ceiling came off houses at least 25 classrooms.

The school is 189 years old.

The La Martiniere school building is older than the high court building by at least 30 years, the school’s counsel told the court. The high court building was constructed in 1872, 10 years after the establishment of the court. La Martiniere was established
in 1836.

At the hearing, Justice Kapur told state advocate-general Kishore Datta that the heritage commission report said repairs were required in the schools, and the KMC had to grant permission for it.

“If the large chunk of the ceiling had fallen on somebody, the blame would have fallen on the school. The repairs are required to prevent such incident in the future,” the school’s counsel said.

The students are scheduled to be back at the school on June 17.