Debashree Gupta (Banerjee) v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

WPA 12852 of 2023 Debashree Gupta (Banerjee) Vs.

The State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Probal Kumar Hatta, Mr. Rohit Banerjee, Ms. Shalini Halder ...for the Petitioner Mr. Shamim ul Bari, Mr. Milon Kumar Maity ...for the State Ms. Manisha Nath ...for KMC By the impugned notice dated May 3, 2023, the 29-05-2023 AKG Ct. 7 demolition and dismantling contractor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation sought to dismantle and remove the hoarding from the premises of the petitioner. It has been submitted by the petitioner that he was not given any hearing before such notice.

On the other hand, it has been submitted by the corporation that the name of the petitioner appears in the unauthorised hoarding list published by the corporation and the said list was published in the newspaper on May 19, 2022. It is submitted that the petitioner has not paid any advertisement tax.

The petitioner submits that as on date, no advertisement is being displayed in the premises. The petitioner further submits that he is completely in dark about the unpaid dues since the corporation has never raised bill for advertisement tax against the petitioner. It appears that the petitioner has made a

representation before the Corporation on May 4, 2023 for redressal of his grievances.

With the aforesaid observations, this writ petition is disposed of with a direction upon the corporation to consider the said representation in accordance with law within a period of three weeks from date.

There shall be a stay of operation of the impugned notice for a period of four weeks.

The corporation, however, will be at liberty to take appropriate steps to recover the unpaid taxes, if any. WPA 12852 of 2023 is disposed of.

Urgent certified website copies of this order, if applied for, be made available to the parties upon compliance with the requisite formalities.

(Kausik Chanda, J.)