The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday passed an interim order directing the Darjeeling Municipality to ensure that no illegal construction takes place within municipal limits until the next date of hearing, following a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by environmental journalist Chandrani Sinha highlighting ecological risks in the hill town.
Sinha is an award-winning independent multimedia journalist with over a decade of experience reporting on climate change, health and environmental issues from India’s eastern corridor, including the Himalayan region and Northeast India.
The PIL, filed in November, flagged unchecked high-rise buildings, hill cutting and alleged violations of building regulations in a seismic-zone-VI and landslide-prone region. The petitioner’s counsel argued that repeated representations to civic authorities had failed to curb unauthorized structures and warned that such activity could further aggravate disaster vulnerability in Darjeeling.
During the hearing, the bench ordered the Municipality to strictly enforce building laws as an interim measure and granted it four weeks to file its affidavit-in-opposition, while allowing the petitioners to respond thereafter.
Advocate-on-record Rishabh Ahmed Khan, appearing for the petitioners, said, “The court has clearly directed that it shall be the duty of the Municipality to ensure that till the next date of hearing no illegal construction is permitted within the Darjeeling Municipal area.”
Senior advocate Sabyasachi Chatterjee told the media that the Chief Minister had been made a party since the Hill Affairs Department and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration fall under her supervision. “If we lose the hills today, tomorrow the entire North Bengal will face the consequences. What we leave behind for future generations matters,” he said.
The matter will be listed again after completion of pleadings.