The Supreme Court has asked cricketer and former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly to return a controversial piece of land in Salt Lake City allotted to him by the Left front government for setting up a school.
A Bench comprising of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly has told Ganguly to comply with the order in two weeks.
The case was taken up by the Supreme Court after a complaint by Humanity, an NGO which alleged that the land was allotted after flouting all procedures.
It was alleged that the land worth Rs 44.9 crore was allotted for just Rs 63 lakhs. The land is located in the posh Salt Lake city area of Kolkata and was more than an acre in area. It was alloted in just around one month after getting the application.
The allotment has been quashed partly because West Bengal’s Urban Land Ceiling Act imposes a ceiling on how much land can be held by a single person in the city.
The allotment was made in after Ganguly, who is considered a sympathiser of the Communists in Bengal, put in a bid in response to an advertisement by the government for setting up of a school in Salt Lake City.
According to the complainant, 24 applications were received in response to the application, but Ganguly’s was chosen unfairly.
The complainant also argued that the government gave more land than was advertised after Ganguly wrote to the urban development minister Ashok Bhattacharya that he needed at least 60 kattas of land for setting up an ICSE school. He also alleged that Ganguly had formed a society comprising of his relatives like brother, sister, father and mother to comply with ICSE regulations.