Nalban boating complex

The high court has set May 17 as the deadline for the Barasat district court to dispose of a plea against the state government’s decision to end a private firm’s lease on the Nalban boating complex.

Till the lower court rules on the petition of Bansal Leisure Parks Ltd, the government will not forcibly take possession of the Salt Lake property, owned by the state-run West Bengal Fisheries Development Corporation (WBFDC).

Bansal Leisure Parks runs the complex on a 30-year lease granted by the erstwhile Left Front government in 2010.

The Trinamul government, which thinks Bansal Leisure Parks had been given the complex at a pittance, issued a notification on April 23 asking the company to vacate the premises.

The firm had challenged the notification in the Barasat court and also moved the high court seeking an order restraining the state from evicting it from Nalban.

“The case in the high court was filed before Justice Dipankar Dutta, who refused to pass any order. The company then moved the division bench of Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, which asked the Barasat court to dispose of the case by May 17,” said a court official.

The division bench also observed: “The state government made it clear that it would maintain status quo on Nalban till May 17.”

The order, however, made it clear that the government would be free to enforce the April 23 notification if the Barasat court ruled in its favour.

S.K. Kapoor, counsel for the lessee, had earlier submitted before the division bench: “Nalban was constructed by my client on the basis of a seven-year lease agreement with the WBFDC in 1991. In 1998, the WBFDC renewed the lease till 2010. In 2010, the term was further extended by 30 years.”

The 30-year extension was granted after the company proposed a Rs 50-crore eco-tourism project in the boating complex. “The project, however, was never sanctioned as the Left Front went out of power in 2011,” said an official.

Government pleader Ashok Banerjee had submitted before the bench on Monday that the fisheries development corporation could earn more from Nalban if it got back the complex from the private firm.

Bansal Leisure Parks pays the government Rs 3 lakh a month as rent, which, according to the agreement, escalates at the rate of 5 per cent every five years. The complex has six ceremony venues, each of which is rented out for Rs 2-5 lakh a day.

The company has stated it did not violate any condition in the lease agreement.