Court Rejects Eviction Notice to Amartya Sen

Kolkata: In a major relief to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, a district court in Birbhum of West Bengal on Wednesday quashed the eviction notice of Visva Bharati (V-B) to vacate his ancestral residence’s 13 decimals of land located on the central university’s campus at Shantiniketan in Bolpur.

Sudeshna Dey Chatterjee, the district judge of the Suri Court, called the eviction notice vindictive while rejecting it, according to Soumendra Roy Chowdhury, one of the lawyers of the Nobel laureate.

Biman Choudhury, another counsel of Prof Sen, said, “The court accepted our plea against the V-B step.” No V-B official was available for comments on the district court order. Prof Sen had challenged the eviction order arguing the law it cited was not applicable at the time when his father, late Ashutosh Sen, took the land on lease from V-B.

On March 19 last year, former joint registrar and estate officer of the V-B, A K Mahato, had issued the eviction order to Prof Sen under the Public Premises (Eviction and Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, stating that the central university would take possession of 13 decimals or 5550 sq ft of land on the north-west corner of the plot.