The Appellate Division has dismissed a plea by a pro-Jamaat-e-Islami organisation to retain possession of the ancestral Pabna home of legendary Bengali actress Suchitra Sen.
Published : 04 May 2014, 01:38 PM
A bench headed by Supreme Court Justice SK Sinha issued the order on Sunday.
This order clears all legal hurdles that existed in recovering Suchitra Sen's ancestral home.
This order means there is now no legal bar to evict ‘Imam Ghazali Institute’ from the home, said Additional Attorney General Murad Reza.
“There is no hurdle in setting up an archive of Suchitra Sen and conserve her ancestral home,” he said.
The institute moved the Appellate Division against a High Court order.
The High Court in August 2011 ordered the institute to vacate the house following a petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, an NGO.
The Imam Ghazali Institute also filed a petition to stop eviction which was rejected by the High Court.
It filed an appeal against the order to the Appellate Division.
The Appellate Division on Sunday dismissed both the pleas.
The house of the Bengali screen legend is located at Hem Sagar Lane in Gopalpur Moholla of Pabna city.
Born on Apr 6, 1931, Sen spent her childhood in this house before she moved to Kolkata after marriage.
She died on Jan 17 this year in Kolkata.
The district administration gave the house on annual lease to the Imam Ghazali Trust in 1987.
The Jamaat set up the trust, whose president is Jamaat's 'Nayeb-e-Aamir', Maulana Abdus Subhan.
Abid Hassan, the legal affairs secretary of Jamaat's Pabna unit, is the secretary of the Trust.
The trust appealed to the government for permanent possession of the house in June 1991, but the government turned down the request.
The lease was canceled in 1995 for non payment.
The Jamaat leader paid the dues and renewed the lease later in the year.
The house is still in their possession.
After strident demands to oust the Jamaat from the house and convert it into a museum was raised by Pabna residents and various cultural organisations, the district administration in June 2009, cancelled the lease given to Jamaat.
It then served an eviction notice on the trust. But the trust filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court, which granted a stay on eviction.
The High Court on July 26, 2012 ordered the government to occupy the house within seven days following a petition by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh.
The Appellate Division stayed the HC order the next day based on a plea by Imam Ghazali Institute’s principal Ayub Hossain Khan.