Calcutta, Feb. 11: A public interest litigation was filed in Calcutta High Court today challenging the Calcutta Municipal Corporation's decision to lease out Lake Market Mall to film producer Srikant Mohta's Venkatesh Foundations Pvt Ltd for two 30-year terms by tweaking a development agreement.

Terming the lease "illegal and arbitrary", Dwaipayan Sengupta and some other lawyers of Calcutta High Court sought an order directing the CMC to "revoke or cancel" the lease agreement "expeditiously".

"The PIL is expected to come up for hearing before the division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Jaymalya Bagchi next week," a high court source said.

The petition mentioned that the CMC agreed to the proposal by the company owned by Mohta, a close aide of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, to split the 60-year lease tenure into two 30-year terms though it would result in a revenue loss of Rs 15.3 crore.

"The CMC and the state government acted in an illegal, arbitrary and biased manner to provide gains to the private company," the petition said.

The petition also alleged that the lease agreement between Venkatesh and the CMC was settled without inviting tenders.

The petition sought an order to the municipal corporation to lease out the mall by inviting tenders and cancel the agreement settled in favour of the company.

Senior government officials, however, said the CMC could face trouble as the petition had sought the submission of all papers related to the lease to the court.

"This might pose a problem for the CMC as the development agreement, signed between the civic body and Arun Plastics in 1987, mentioned a 60-year lease period. Allowing the company to secure financial benefit by allowing it to split the lease tenure into two parts might come under the scanner now," an official said.

Arun Plastics was later renamed Venkatesh Foundations Pvt Ltd.

The Telegraph had reported that top finance department officials refused to approve the deal as it would result in a significant loss of revenue. The file was left with finance minister Amit Mitra for the final call.

"As the finance department was silent on the deal, the CMC registered the lease for the first 30 years without mentioning the second part. Now, the hurried decision to give the benefit to the company would certainly come under question," a government official said.