A Calcutta High Court division bench on Monday came down on the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) for failing to take action against illegal filling of water bodies and imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on the civic body.
The bench, headed by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, said the CMC was “cheating the court”.
The bench was hearing a public interest litigation that alleged that water bodies had been illegally filled up and buildings constructed on the plots.
The high court had earlier asked the state government to let it know how many water bodies in the CMC area had changed character in recent years.
The state informed the court through an affidavit that the character of over 4,000 water bodies had changed in 44 of the 144 wards of the CMC.
The petitioner had accused local bodies of not taking any steps based on complaints related to illegal filling of water bodies.
During the hearing, the chief justice said that though the petition was last heard in November 2022, the CMC had yet to submit to the court a list of water bodies in its area.
When the division bench asked the CMC’s lawyer about the number of water bodies in the city, the lawyer failed to give a satisfactory reply.
The bench then asked the state to inform the court how many water bodies had changed character in the CMC area.
On Monday, the chief justice said no concrete action appears to have been taken to evict the encroachers or demolish structures built over filled-up water bodies. “We can safely conclude that the CMC is dragging the matter,” he said.
He also asked the CMC to file an affidavit before the next hearing mentioning the number of water bodies in its area and the action taken against encroachments and illegal conversion of water bodies.
It was then that the Chief Justice asked the CMC to pay “the cost of Rs 1 lakh to the state legal services authority”.
During the hearing, the Chief Justice said at one point: “Let the municipal corporation not hoodwink the court and hoodwink itself.”
He also said: “There is clear collusion between the officers of the municipal corporation and the encroachers.”
The Chief Justice told the CMC’s lawyer: “From 2021, you have not been able to place a piece of paper showing that you have restored a water body. You are cheating. Cheating the court.”
“Every engineer or whoever is the authority in that ward knows what is happening. It is 100 per cent collusion. Do you mean to say the person in charge of the ward did not know? If half a lorry of brick is offloaded at 7 in the morning, the fellow is there knocking on your door,” a visibly displeased Chief Justice said.
“We will file a detailed report in the court,” said a CMC official.