Editor,
I am Tushar Nath Bhattacharjee of Sydney, Australia, whose property in Lachaumiere, Shillong has been illegally possessed by Shree Prakash Mahanta, former Additional Advocate General of Meghalaya until he was made to resign by the Meghalaya Government for the second time in May 2013. I thank you for the report in The Shillong Times (ST Sep 12, 2015) regarding the illegal possession of our parental property in Lachaumiere and subsequent reports on the orders passed by the Meghalaya High Court. The property belongs to me and my two sisters Sujata Bezbaruah and Sabita Goswami, all of whom are senior citizens of aged 77 years, 84 years and 82 years respectively. I believe the case has generated considerable public interest in Shillong because of the high profile of the perpetrator S P Mahanta who is both wealthy and powerful. His method of acquiring our parental property has been judged to be illegal by the Appellate Court of the District Judge B Giri on May 6, 2013. After that the then Chief Justice of the High Court of Meghalaya, Justice P.C. Pant, in his order dated June 23, 2014 corroborated the order passed by the Appellate Court of District Judge B. Giri. But S P Mahanta continues to illegally occupy our parental property in defiance of the judgment of the Highest Court of the State. He has used various Petitions like Revision Petition and Review Petition to prolong his illegal possession, although every one of them has been rejected by the High Court of Meghalaya. His Review Petition was rejected by the full Bench of Meghalaya High Court on September 11, 2015.
One can make his/her own assessment of the standard of honesty and ethics of S P Mahanta, who together with his wife Vennetta Kharsynthiew illegally occupied our parental property from July 10, 1993 till date i.e. for 22 years, in spite of the Appellate Court and the High Court orders that occupation of the property is Illegal. It appears that an ordinary person is readily punished by the Law when he or she commits an illegal act. But when a wealthy and powerful person, particularly a powerful lawyer commits an illegal act, it is very difficult to punish him/her for the illegal actions. In our case we are still fighting for justice for over 11 years since we filed the Title suit 10(T)2004 on 7/4/2004.
It is worth mentioning that advocate SP Mahanta is the younger brother of the son-in-law of my eldest sister Sujata Bezbaruah who is one of the aggrieved persons in this case. S P Mahanta took full advantage of this relationship to gain the trust of our family and then misused that trust. In fact, our trust on S P Mahanta was totally misplaced.
Yours etc.,
Tushar Bhattacharjee,
Via email
MUDA selling outdated bus coupons!
Editor,
I wish to inform about an incident that took place on Sept 9, 2015. I boarded an SSTS bus from Police Bazar to IGP Point at 5 pm. As far as I can recall a report had appeared in ‘The Shillong Times’ earlier this week which stated that coupons can be bought from the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (M.U.D.A) office in lieu of cash payment for SSTS buses. After reading this article, I bought twenty coupons costing Rs.5 each. Unfortunately, on producing the coupon to the bus conductor of the SSTS bus (No- ML 01 6558), the very same day, the bus conductor refused to accept the coupon on the grounds that the coupon was ‘outdated.’ He also remarked that the coupon should be ‘torn’ and ‘thrown away.’ Will the MUDA authorities please clarify why this sort of injustice should happen and why outdated coupons should be sold to the unsuspecting passengers? Should MUDA not take action against the person who sold the outdated coupons? Yours etc.,
Raghav Jhunjhunwala
Shillong-1