Form No. J(2)

In the High Court at Calcutta

Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction

Appellate Side

Present: The Hon’be Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya

And

The Hon’ble Justice Supratim Bhattacharya

M.A.T 405 of 2022

IA No: CAN 1 of 2022

Smt. Gayatri Devi Gupta and another

Vs.

State of West Bengal and another

For the appellants : Ms. Sutapa Roy Choudhury

Ms. Aratrica Roy

Heard on : 09.12.2025 Judgment on : 09.12.2025

Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.:-

1. Despite service, none appears on behalf of the respondents.

2. The receipt of service of notice, filed in court today, be kept on

record. It transpires therefrom that the office of the Legal Remembrancer has been duly served. We deem the same to be

adequate notice on the State respondents and accordingly take up the matter for hearing.

3. The genesis of the instant lis is a resumption order dated September 9, 2008, whereby the disputed plot of land was resumed by the respondent authorities on the ground that the lessee, to whom the plot was granted by the respondents, failed to start construction thereupon in terms of Clause 6(a) of the original indenture of lease.

4. The brief facts of the case, in a nutshell, are as follows:

5. A lease was granted in respect of the plot-in-question, situated in Bidhannagar, on the north-eastern fringe of proper Kolkata, by the respondent authorities in favour of one Anil Kumar Banerjee, the original lessee, on June 25, 1972. It is relevant to mention here that the possession of the property was handed over on May 13, 1975 to the original lessee even according to the respondent authorities.

6. Subsequently, the original lessee assigned the property, on similar terms as the original lease, to one Sushil Kumar Chattopadhyay in the month of December, 1976.

7. By a Will executed on July 6, 2005, the said Sushil Kumar Chattopadhyay bequeathed the property to the present appellant.

8. The said Will was subsequently probated on February 7, 2006.

9. In the interregnum, the testator Sushil expired on September 3, 2005.

10. Thereafter, when the present appellant sought to have the property mutated/recorded in their name with the intention of making construction, the respondent authorities refused to do so, prompting the appellants to move a writ petition before this court upon which, by an order passed in W.P. No. 602(W) of 2008, a learned Single Judge of this court directed the respondent authorities to consider the representation of the appellants in that regard.

11. Following the same, a hearing was given to the appellants.

12. The appellants clarified that the said Sushil Kumar Chattopadhyay/testator had already met his demise on September 3, 2005 and no notice had been given before resumption in pursuance of the relevant clause of the lease deed.

13. However, despite such objection, the impugned resumption order was passed by the Principal Secretary, Urban Development Department of the State, on September 9, 2008.

14. Challenging the same, the appellants moved a writ petition, giving rise to W.P. No. 26060 (W) of 2008, which was dismissed by a learned Single Judge of this court vide order dated March 7, 2022, which is the subject-matter of challenge in the present appeal.

15. Learned senior counsel appearing for the appellants argues that although the respondents had given out before the writ court that a notice was given to the lessee to remedy the breach in not making the construction in the year 1991, despite specific direction of the writ court to file affidavit-in-opposition to the writ petition, no affidavit was filed, nor was any such notice produced before the writ court at any point of time to indicate that a prior notice of resumption was given in terms of the lease deed.

16. It is contended that although a second notice was purportedly given on September 19, 2005 to Sushil Kumar Chattopadhyay, the then lessee, the said Sushil had already expired on September 3, 2005 and as such, the notice was sent to a dead person and, thus, was a nullity ab initio.

17. Similarly, the further no