The Calcutta High Court has issued an interim stay against Visva Bharati's move to take away part of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's property at Shantiniketan.
Calcutta HC Stays Move to Acquire Part of Amartya Sen's Shantiniketan Land
The Calcutta High Court has granted an interim stay against Visva Bharati's move to take away a part of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's property, Pratichi, at Shantiniketan.
Amartya Sen had approached the High Court seeking relief as the university had passed an order directing him to vacate 0.13 acres (5,500 sq ft) of land at his ancestral Santiniketan residence by May 6. An appeal for a stay on a possible eviction was fixed for hearing on May 15, 2023, at a court in Suri in Birbhum district of West Bengal.
The central university claimed that the land is under the "illegal occupation" of Sen and said that it would evict him if he failed to vacate it within the deadline. The matter was heard by a bench headed by Justice Bibhas Ranjan De at the High Court, which gave an interim stay until it is heard before a lower court in Birbhum district.
In his petition, Sen argued that in October 1943, the then Visva-Bharati general secretary Rathindranath Tagore had given 1.38 acres of land for a 99-year lease to his father, Ashutosh Sen, who later built Pratichi.
Sen had earlier moved a court in Suri against the eviction notice, but the court set May 15 as the date of hearing, well after the university's deadline to vacate the land.
