Kalimpong office row caught in legal mess
Posted by barunroy on July 3, 2008
FROM THE TELEGRAPH
BY RAJEEV RAVIDAS
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| The building at the centre of the dispute. Picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha |
Kalimpong, July 2: The CPM and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha are locked in a fight over the occupation of a building owned by the Kalimpong Art and Crafts Industrial Cooperative Society Ltd here. The irony is that both appear to be on shaky legal grounds.
The row began after the Kalimpong branch of the Morcha opened its office on the ground floor on the basis of an authorisation letter obtained from the “chairman” of the society, Mangal Singh Rai. The CPM, which occupies the first floor of the building at Melli Road here, alleges that the board of directors of the society, of which Singh claims to be the chairman, was dissolved back in 1993.
Records available reveal that in 1997, a board of administrators was constituted to run the society in place of the dissolved board of directors following an order from the director of cottage and small scale industries, West Bengal. However, the administrators, too, were later asked to resign and after that no board was constituted.
In 1998, the Kalimpong unit of the CPM opened its office on the terrace of the building with the permission of “chairman” Rai, paying an annual rent of Rs 7,000 to the board. “It was in the latter half of 2003 that we came to know that the board of which Rai claimed to be the chairman was illegal. When we told the self-styled board members that henceforth we would pay our rent through account payee cheques, they failed to give us the account number, after which we stopped paying the rent,” said Tara Sundas, a district committee member of the CPM.
Sundas, however, argued the subdivisional administration should not have allowed the Morcha to occupy the ground floor without ascertaining the facts.
“The Morcha used Rai to fool the administration and the latter willingly agreed to be fooled,” the CPM leader said.
Local Morcha leaders said they were not aware that the board headed by Rai was an illegal one.
“The CPM, too, must prove on what basis they have been occupying the space for so long. We have no problems moving out if documentary evidence is provided to us to prove the illegality of the board,” said Dawa Ghisingh, the vice-president of the Morcha’s Kalimpong unit.
Rai could not be contacted.
Kalimpong SDO P.T. Sherpa said he would take action if any complaint backed by documentary evidence was brought before him.
