The Calcutta High Court has granted an interim stay against the move by Visva Bharati to seize a part of Amartya Sen’s property Pratichi in Shantiniketan. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen had moved the court seeking relief after the university ordered him to vacate 0.13 acres of land at his ancestral Santiniketan residence by May 6.
Sen argued that the land was leased to his father, Ashutosh Sen, for 99 years by the then Visva-Bharati general secretary Rathindranath Tagore in October 1943. The university had claimed that the land was under ‘illegal occupation’ and had threatened to evict the economist if he did not vacate it by the deadline.
The matter was heard by Justice Bibhas Ranjan De at the High Court, who granted an interim stay in the matter until it is heard before a lower court in Birbhum district. Sen had previously moved a court in Suri against the eviction notice, but the hearing was fixed for May 15, which was after the university’s deadline to vacate the land.
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