A public interest litigation filed by a Purbachal resident against the Corporation over car parking has been disposed of, with the court ruling in favour of the petitioner. The Corporation is now expected to put up signs clearly marking parking zones, mentioning the parking fees, and the attendants must be in uniform.

Sanjib Sinha Choudhury, a Purbachal Cluster IV resident, had lodged the case last year after his friend Ananta Mondal was assaulted by an attendant when he was trying to park his bike around the IB Block Manipal Hospitals. The Telegraph Salt Lake had published the same in “Parking posers: PIL against demanding an exorbitant fee for parking” on December 15, 2023.

“Every vehicle owner of Salt Lake suffers from this problem. The fees, the parking spaces are not mentioned clearly, the attendant has no ID card or documents… I was forced to file this PIL on behalf of the common man,” says Sinha Choudhury, a businessman in his 50s.

“The case was filed in the high court before the bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, and was disposed of on August 28,” says Choudhury’s lawyer Chandrasekhar Bag. “The judgment asks for parking spaces, fee structure, and no-parking zones to be earmarked and mentioned not only on the corporation website but also on the ground for easy access to the public.

Parking attendants should be in uniform, carry identity cards and the authorities must conduct surprise visits to ensure the system is working smoothly.

But Sinha Choudhury says he has seen no traction on the ground. “We served the court order to the Corporation commissioner and Bidhannagar South police station, under which my friend was first assaulted. But they have taken no steps to implement the same,” says the plaintiff.

“Right now we ourselves are preoccupied by the RG Kar incident and are attending protest marches. But if no steps are taken by the authorities soon, I shall speak to my lawyer and make my next move,” he says.

In the 2023 article, The Telegraph Salt Lake had also written about Dibyayan Banerjee, an advocate from Survey Park who had filed a Right to Information (RTI) Act application, asking the Corporation to furnish details about parking, particularly about the companies that have won the parking tender contract, the revenue the civic body earns from parking etc.

“The Corporation did not respond to my RTI as they are clearly trying to cover up a racket. So I appealed to the higher authority, the state information commission. They did not respond either so I’m about to appeal to the central information commission now,” said Banerjee, who is backed by a Phoolbagan-based social group called Citizens Forum.