Siuri District Court rules in favour of Amartya Sen

The Siuri district court on Wednesday ruled in favour of the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in the land dispute case.

The Visva Bharati University (VBU) had issued a notice against Sen asking him to vacate 13 decimals of land on which his ancestral house ‘Pratichi’ is built, which according to the university is under “illegal occupation”. According to a news agency, Sen’s lawyer said that the eviction order by the central university was dismissed by the court.

In August, the court had granted a stay on the eviction notice issued by the central university. The notice had asked him to vacate it within 15 days. However, it was learnt that the district judge Sudeshna De (Chatterjee) also directed that the stay on the eviction notice would be in force till the disposal of the main case related to the ownership of the plot in the Santiniketan campus of the central university.

Earlier, Amartya Sen had moved the High Court which had granted him an interim stay against a move by the VBU till the court in Suri decides on

the matter. Professor Sen had maintained that Rathindranath Tagore had given 1.38 acres of land on a lease of 99 years to his father Ashutosh Sen in

October 1943.Sen has been extended immense support by the state’s ruling party and the chief minister Mamata Banerjee who met Sen early this year and had handed over to him certain documents regarding the land. She had opined that Sen was being targeted by the BJP because he often criticised their ideology. She condemned such “harassment” of a Nobel Laureate. She had also assured him of all help from the state government.