Whid Box Molla & ANR v. State Of West Bengal & ORS

January 11, 2022 Sl. No.21 Court No.1 SG/s.biswas WPA 13774 of 2018 Whid Box Molla and another vs.

The State of West Bengal and others (Through Video Conference) Mr. Anirban Ray, ld. Govt. Pleader Mr. Md. T. M. Siddiqui, Mr. Nilotpal Chatterjee, Advocates ... for the State Mr. Saikat Banerjee, Advocate ... for the High Court Administration No one is present for the petitioners. The writ petition is pending since 2018.

Record perused.

The allegation of the petitioners is that in January, 2018 about 500 old trees standing on the side of PWD Road from Dholahat to Laxminarayanpur, valued about `8 lakhs have been cut by the Pradhan of Dholahat Gram Panchayat for his personal profit.

The record reflects that the petitioners along with other persons had jointly made an application on 12.02.2018 to the Block Development Officer, Kulpi, District South 24 Parganas i.e. respondent No.6 herein. The grievance of the petitioners is that no appropriate action on the said application has been taken. Since the matter relates to allegation of illegal felling of trees, we are of the opinion that the issue needs to be examined by respondent No.6, Block Development Officer.

WPA 13774 of 2018 Hence, we dispose of the present petition with a direction to respondent No.6, Block Development Officer, P.S. Dholahat, District South 24 Parganas to duly consider the representation dated 12.02.2018 in accordance with law and take appropriate action after giving an opportunity to all the concerned parties. Learned counsel for the State is directed to send a copy of this order along with a copy of the representation to the respondent No.6. He is permitted to obtain a copy of the petition along with enclosures from the department at his own cost. The present petition is accordingly disposed of.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties on usual undertaking.

[Prakash Shrivastava, C.J.] [Rajarshi Bharadwaj, J.]