JUDGMENT

Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J. - The petitioners claim to be licensees who have been carrying on their respective businesses in their allotted stalls in the Malda District Court compound. The last of such licences admittedly expired on March 31, 2011. From March 24, 2011 to March 26, 2013, the petitioners apparently submitted various representations to respondent nos. 4 and 5 to renew their licences.

2. On July 15, 2014, respondent no.4 issued a notification vide Memo No.858(B)/N directing all the stall-owners to submit their particulars as proof of valid occupation of the stalls.

3. On September 10, 2018, police personnel were allegedly deployed in the Malda Court compound and asked the petitioners to vacate their stalls, on which the petitioners allegedly submitted further representations to the respondent nos. 4 and 5. It is relevant to mention that respondent no.4 in the writ petition is the Office of the District Judge at Malda and respondent no.5, the District Magistrate and Collector at Malda. The writ petition alleges that on February 26, 2020, the Executive Engineer, Malda Division, Public Works Department (PWD), being respondent no.8, with his men and agents allegedly blocked the front area of the stalls with tin barricades.

4. On February 29, 2020, the petitioners submitted further representations, but to no avail.

5. The petitioners contend that they have been carrying on business relating to DTP, Cyber Cafe, Photocopy, food, tea, snacks, etc., which catered to the litigants and practitioners in the Malda Court. The petitioners claim to have been paying rent to the authorities regularly at all material times by virtue of challans. Copies of the petitioners' licenses and challans have been annexed respectively as annexures P-1 and P-2 collectively to the writ petition. The petitioners carried on paying electric bills regularly in respect of their connections to the said stalls, also at all material times.

6. It is alleged that, by dint of barricading the stalls by tin barriers during the imposition of lock down throughout the country due to the pandemic, the petitioners have virtually been evicted from the said stalls without due process of law. The provisions of Section 3 of the Public Land (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as 'the 1962 act') were given a go-by while so ousting the petitioners.

7. The present writ petition has been filed against such allegedly unlawful actions of the administration.

8. Respondent no.3, the Registrar (Inspection-II) of the High Court at Calcutta, and respondent no.9, the High Court at Calcutta (through the Registrar General) have filed a joint affidavit-in-opposition to the writ petition. The High Court administration has taken the stand, inter alia, that the alleged action was not an exercise of permanent eviction but an exercise of temporary fencing of the land in question, where Court rooms are intended to be constructed under the National Court Management Systems (NCMS) Norms and is, thus, credible and valid.

9. It is further contended that the petitioners' licenses were admittedly not renewed beyond the year 2011, which rendered the petitioners illegal occupants on the date of the fencing. as such, it is argued that the petitioners have no right, title and/or interest in the stalls-in-question and, therefore, lack the locus standi to file the writ petition.

10. Learned counsel for the High Court administration cites Shiv Dass vs. Union of India and others, reported at (2007) 9 SCC 274 and New Delhi Municipal Council Vs. Pan Singh and others, reported at (2007) 9 SCC 278 in support of the proposition that belated writ petitions ought not to be entertained in view of the laches on the part of the petitioners. In the present case, the petitioners have failed to explain the inordinate delay in presenting the writ petition after the cause of action arose, since sufficient notice has been given to the petitioners regarding vacating the stalls since