Kolkata, Sep 8 (IANS) Rama Devi Goenka, the owner of the building at Camac Street in Kolkata, whose seventh and eighth floor houses the party office of Trinamool Congress General Secretary and the party’s Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha member, Abhishek Banerjee, on Tuesday approached a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court seeking permission for eviction of the party office from the two floors.
The building’s owner had earlier accused Trinamool Congress of illegally occupying the two floors of the building and also served the previous ruling party in West Bengal a notice in the matter.
The owner of the building also approached a lower court in the matter accusing the Trinamool Congress of not paying rent for the two floors since the last five months.
However, the lower court ordered the maintaining of the status quo in the matter for the time being.
On Tuesday, the owner of the building had approached the Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya challenging that status quo order of the lower court.
The allegations of the building owner against Trinamool Congress in relation to the Camac Street party office are quite serious.
The first allegation is that although in the lease agreement signed on March 1, 2020, between the building owner and the All India Youth Trinamool Congress there was a clause which said the owner would first give a completion certificate and only after that Trinamool Youth Congress would take possession of the seventh and eighth floors, in reality the youth wing of the previous ruling party in West Bengal occupied the two floors before the completion certificate was provided.
The second allegation is that a billboard was put up on the roof of the building without informing the owner of the building.
The third allegation was besides the two floors for which the lease agreement was made, the youth wing of the previous ruling party in West Bengal also illegally occupied other portions like the stairs, the garage, and the roof of the building.
The fourth allegation was that the Trinamool Congress was not paying rent for the last five months.
The same building was in the middle of a controversy last month after the officials and staff of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), accompanied by Kolkata Police personnel reached that office to remove the illegal billboard.
Tension flared on August 27, as KMC staff and the cops allegedly faced resistance from Trinamool activists led by Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien and other party leaders, triggering fight between protesters and police.
Thereafter, three FIRs were registered at the local Shakespeare Sarani Police Station, where Trinamool Congress activists have been accused of assaulting on-duty police personnel and attempting to outrage the modesty of a woman police officer.
In two of the three FIRs, Abhishek Banerjee, Derek O’Brien, Humayun Kabir and Baishwanar Chatterjee have been named as accused.
Police have arrested 14 people in connection with the case so far.
Already the Trinamool Congress General Secretary, O’Brien and Abhishek Banerjee’s Personal Assistant Sumit Roy had been questioned by the policemen of the Shakespeare Sarani Police Station in the matter.
–IANS
src/khz