The court presumed that the things done by the State were done with the authority of law.

( 1 ) THE petitioner, a Non-Governmental Organization, was allotted the subject plot of land by KMDA. The petitioner is such an organization, which is connected with enhancement of education. The petitioner paid a sum of Rs. 18,90,000/- as premium for allotment of the said land. This payment was made between 10th october, 1991 and 24th March, 1993. KMDA made this allotment at the request of the State Government who in turn had handed over this land to KMDA. On 1st January, 2002 the foundation stone for the proposed construction to be made on the land by the petitioner was laid by Professor Walter Kohn, the Nobel laureate. At the time when the foundation stone had been laid, although the petitioner had paid the premium, but the conveyance had not been executed in its favour. It had then only an Indenture of License dated 26th May, 1998 executed by KMDA. The lease was ultimately executed in favour of the petitioner on 28th July, 2003 by KMDA. The petitioner then applied for and obtained a sanction from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation for construction of a building on the said land. Kolkata Municipal Corporation granted such sanction on 15th march, 2004 upon payment of a fee of Rs. 7,78,855/ -. On 28th May, 2004 the petitioner engaged a contractor for the purpose of making construction on the land. It thereupon transpired that someone else was in the process of construction of a boundary wall on the said plot of land and had removed the foundation stone laid by Professor Walter Kohn. This has resulted in filing of the present writ petition. When the writ petition was moved before me, I appointed Joint Special Officers with a direction upon them to ascertain what is the state of affair prevailing at the time of their visit. When the Joint Special officers submitted their report, the added private respondents appeared and submitted that they were the people who are interested in the land in question and they were the persons who were responsible for removal of the foundation stone and for construction of the boundary wall.

( 2 ) HAVING regard to such submission, I added them as parties to the present writ petition with a direction upon them to file affidavits. The affidavits have been filed and in their affidavit, the added private respondents have contended that the added private respondents are the owners of the property in question. In the affidavit-in-opposition filed by the added private respondents, they are relying upon an application made for mutation dated 6th June, 2004 and a certificate of mutation dated 27th May, 2004. No attempt has been made to explain as to how the certificate of mutation could be given on 27th May, 2004 when the application therefor had been made on 6th June, 2004. Be that as it may, it has been contended on the strength of a xerox copy of a certificate of sale of land said to have been issued by the First Munsif at Alipore that Shri dhiren Chandra Roy and Shri Bijoy Kumar Roy purchased the land in question on a Court sale. It has been claimed in the affidavit that subsequently there were family partitions and ultimately Pratibha Chandra Roy got the land in question and the same was registered in the R. S. Records on 29th September, 1955. Neither any record in respect of the family settlement had been produced nor any copy thereof had been handed over to me. On my enquiry it has been stated that Pratibha Chandra Roy died on 18th January, 1991. Why since 1991 until June, 2004 no step had been taken to mutate the names of the added private respondents as owners of the land in question, has not been explained or attempted to be explained anywhere even at the time of submissions. It has not been stated. anywhere in the said supplementary affidavit as to why the added private respondents did not take step the moment the foundation stone was laid on the land claimed to be belonging to the added private respondents. It goes without saying that there were much fun fare at the time of layi