Aloke Porel v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

March 18, 2026 Sl. No.101 Court No.1 s.biswas WPA(P) 280 of 2025 Aloke Porel vs.

The State of West Bengal and others Mr. Raghunath Chakraborty Ms. Mohana Das ... for the petitioner Ms. Tapati Samanta ... for the State Dictated by Sujoy Paul, C.J.

1. Mr.

Raghunath Chakraborty, learned counsel for the petitioner and Ms. Tapati Samanta, learned counsel for the State, are present. With the consent the matter is finally heard.

2. In the present public interest litigation, the petitioner has prayed for completing the construction of remaining part of road from 31 No. Bus Stand via SantoshpurKalitala to Amarpur (Bajrangbali Mandir), District Hooghly within a time frame.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that major portion of the said road has already been constructed and small piece has not been constructed. During the course of hearing, he placed reliance on

Para (b) of page 4 of the report filed by the State, which reads thus:

"b) To construction of the said road, approximately R.4,00,000/- is required but at present it is not possible on the part of the Panchayat to construct the said road because it was not included in the yearly planning of the Gram Panchayat but in future it will be done within six months if the required money will have sanctioned for the said purpose from the concerned authority."

3. It is argued that this court directed the learned counsel for the State on the last date i.e. 06.03.2026 to seek instruction in the matter.

4. The matter is taken up today. Learned counsel for the respondent State fairly submitted that no doubt the small piece of road about 110 meters could not be constructed and construction cost was approximately Rs.4 lakhs. Since the amount was not sanctioned to the panchayat, the road could not be completed.

5. It is not in dispute that a major portion of the road in question has been constructed and as per the report, only small portion of

the road, construction cost of which is Rs.4 lakhs, could not be completed.

6. The panchayat expressed its inability to do it because remaining construction of road was not part of its yearly planning of the gram panchayat. However, it was averred that it will be done in future and a time line of six months was quoted subject to availability of fund by the concerned authority.

7. In view of the rival stand of the parties, it is clear that the small portion of the road needs to be completed. Such prayer of the public must be treated to be a demand in public interest and we find no valid reason for not completion of remaining construction work.

8. Accordingly, we deem it proper to direct respondent no.1 (Principal Secretary, Department of Panchayats and Rural Development, Government of West Bengal) to immediately release the desired fund to respondent no.5 (the Pradhan, Radhanagar Gram Panchayat). In turn,

the respondent no.5 is directed to complete the remaining construction work within 45 days. The respondent no.1 shall release the necessary fund within 15 days from the date of production of the copy of this order and in turn, the respondent no.5 shall ensure completion of remaining work within 45 days therefrom.

9. With the aforesaid, the petition is disposed of.

(Sujoy Paul, C.J.) (Partha Sarathi Sen, J.)