Amartya Sen Asks Visva-Bharati To Withdraw False Allegation That He Is Illegally Protecting Land

Kolkata:

Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen on Monday wrote to Visva-Bharati college difficult that it withdraws the allegation that his circle of relatives is in “unlawful” ownership of land in its Santiniketan campus and alleged that the accusations are a crude try at harassment.

Mr Sen wrote the letter to Visva-Bharati Vice-Chancellor Prof Bidyut Chakraborty two days after the government of the central college requested the West Bengal executive to measure the plot owned via him at Santiniketan once imaginable to completely unravel the dispute.

The famous economist stated within the letter that his father had bought free-hold land from the marketplace and now not from Visva-Bharati – so as to add to their domicile and he has been paying taxes for them.

He had additionally despatched a felony realize previous this yr to the Vice-Chancellor asking him to withdraw instantly your false allegation made to the inside track companies {that a} plot of land owned via Visva-Bharati is unlawfully occupied via me.

Whilst the college was once now not ready to supply any justification for the allegation, it has asked the West Bengal executive “to measure the realm of our domicile, Pratichi, to check with the longer term rent of land taken via my father in 1940 from Visva-Bharati,” Mr Sen stated within the letter.

“This surprising abuse of an 80-year-old report is obviously a crude try at harassment or worse,” he stated. “Amongst different mistakes it ignores the large truth, which I’ve mentioned again and again (even within the context of this dispute), that an excessive amount of free-hold land was once bought via my father (available in the market — now not from Visva-Bharati) so as to add to our domicile on which khajna and Panchayat taxes are paid via me annually,” the letter stated.

Therefore the officiating registrar’s danger of felony motion in opposition to him if the professional discovers any further land past the leased land turns out vastly mischievous, Mr Sen stated.

Mentioning that he’s uninterested in the VC’s repeated claims in spite of emphatic denials on his phase about his telephone name to Mr Chakraborty in 2019, Sen stated that the VC insisted that the decision was once made both on June 2 or June 14.

“On being knowledgeable that I used to be out of the country for all the month of June 2019 and got here again to India most effective in July, the tale was once promptly altered via the V.C’s workplace to say that I had referred to as in June or July however stated the similar issues,” the letter stated.

“Slightly than inventing new falsities and including to their culpability, Visva-Bharati must withdraw the false allegations made via them, as my attorney has requested,” Mr Sen stated.

An argument had erupted on December 24 ultimate yr, the day High Minister Narendra Modi addressed the centenary celebrations of Visva-Bharati, when media reported that the college has written to the West Bengal executive alleging dozens of land parcels owned via it have been wrongfully recorded within the names of personal events together with Mr Sen.

Amartya Sen, who now lives in the United States, has stated that the land, on which his area stands is on a long-term rent, which is nowhere close to its expiry.

Mentioning that the Visva-Bharati government had by no means complained to him or his circle of relatives about any irregularity in preserving the land, Mr Sen has accused the VC of appearing on the behest of the Centre “with its rising keep an eye on over Bengal”.

Visva-Bharati officers weren’t to be had for remark at the letter. West Bengal Leader Minister Mamata Banerjee and several other distinguished intellectuals of the state have expressed fortify to the economist at the row.