M/S. Ritman Commercial Private Limited And ANR. v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

Item No.99 23.06.2025 Court. No. 19 GB W.P.A. 11772 of 2025 M/s. Ritman Commercial Private Limited & Anr. Vs.

The State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. A.K. Upadhyay, Ms. Arunima Laha Sengupta, Mr. Diptomoy Talukdar, Ms. Mahasmriti Ghosh ... for the Petitioners.

Ms. Tuli Sinha ... for the Respondent Nos.1 to 4/State.

1. The affidavit-of-service as filed today is taken on record.

2. None appears on behalf of the respondent no.5, that is, KMDA, though the learned advocate for the writ petitioners and the learned advocate for the respondent State and its functionaries are present.

3. It is submitted on behalf of the writ petitioners that the writ petitioners are the purchasers of the land, particular of which has been mentioned in page no.17 of the instant writ petition and such purchase was completed in the year 2006.

4. It is submitted that subsequent to such purchase it has come to the knowledge of the writ petitioners that prior to such purchase, that is, in the year 1975 the said land in question was acquired by the respondent State for the respondent no.5, who is the requiring body. It is further submitted on behalf of the writ petitioners that it has also come to the knowledge of the writ petitioners that after acquisition, adequate

compensation has not been paid to the then recorded owners of the said land who are the predecessor-ininterest of the present writ petitioners.

5. Drawing attention to page nos.24 to 30 of the instant writ petition, it is submitted that ventilating the grievance of the writ petitioners, the writ petitioners' learned advocate wrote a letter dated 23.08.2024 to the respondent authorities but the respondent authorities did not respond to the said representation dated 23.08.2024.

6. It is, thus, submitted that the respondent authorities may be directed to consider the representation of the writ petitioners in accordance with law.

7. Such contention of the writ petitioners have been disputed by the learned advocate for the respondent State, however, Ms. Sinha, learned advocate appearing on behalf of the respondent State in her usual fairness submits before this Court that the Special Land Acquisition Collector, South 24 Parganas may be directed to consider the representation of the writ petitioners in accordance with law.

8. After careful consideration of the entire materials as placed before this Court and after hearing the learned advocates for the contending parties, this Court while disposing the instant writ petition directs the Special Land Acquisition Collector, South 24 Parganas to consider the representation dated 23.08.2024 as submitted by the learned advocate for the writ

petitioners in accordance with law and after giving an opportunity of hearing both to the writ petitioners and/or their authorized representative shall pass a reasoned order and to communicate the same to the writ petitioners preferably by mail, if the email details of the writ petitioners are provided to him at the time of hearing.

9. The entire exercise as indicated in the foregoing paragraph is to be completed within 90 working days from the date of communication of the server copy of this order.

10. The time limit as fixed by this Court is mandatory and peremptory.

11. Liberty is given to the learned advocate on record for the writ petitioners to communicate the server copy of this order to the Special Land Acquisition Collector, South 24 Parganas forthwith.

12. The Special Land Acquisition Collector, South 24 Paragans is directed to act on the server copy of this order.

13. With the aforementioned observation, the instant writ petition being WPA 11772 of 2025 is disposed of.

14. Urgent Photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties upon compliance of all necessary formalities.

(Partha Sarathi Sen, J.)