Mayor Firhad Hakim on Friday questioned how an engineer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) who had initiated proceedings against an illegal structure later regularised the same structure after a court asked the KMC to conduct another hearing.

Hakim said it can happen “if the engineer had been bribed”.

His comments came when a caller at the weekly phone-in programme — Talk to Mayor — complained about a building against which a demolition order had been passed earlier.

When Hakim asked the chief engineer of the KMC’s building department about the details of the case, he told the mayor that the aggrieved party had approached a court challenging the demolition order

“The court asked the executive engineer to conduct a fresh hearing. After another round of hearing, the structure was regularised,” said the engineer.

Regularisation is a term used for structures with some illegal construction that are made legal against payment of a penalty.

It was then that Hakim questioned two contradictory steps by the engineer regarding the same building.

“The engineer served a notice under section 400(1). The special officer (building) issued a demolition order. But when the court asked the KMC to conduct a fresh hearing, the same engineer reversed the earlier order and regularised the structure. He must have taken bribe,” Hakim said.

KMC officials said owners of illegal structures or those with deviations from the original building plan are served notices under Section 400(1) of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, 1980. A special officer (building), who has his office at the KMC headquarters, conducts hearings. Either a demolition order is passed or the structure is regularised on a case-by-case basis.

Hakim said the KMC could not have “two faces”. If the initial demolition order against the structure was wrong, the civic body should admit it in court, he said.