SANJIB BANERJEE,J. - (1.) The petitioners complain of being cheated by the State in their land being confiscated for a pittance only to be ultimately made over to realtors for a highend residential complex being developed without the land being used for any public purpose.
(2.) The subject-matter of the present petition is about of an acre of land in once down-market Tangra that is now increasingly reaching to the sky. The predecessors-in-interest of the petitioners had leased out such land along with a larger chunk for a company to set up its factory thereat. The original lease was executed and possession was made over by the predecessors-in-interest of the petitioners to the relevant company in or about 1955. The original lessee faced financial problems and such company was nationalised in or about 1984. The nationalised company, Tyre Corporation of India Limited (TCIL), was controlled by the Central government, but due to its net-worth being eroded, a reference was made in respect of TCIL in 1992 to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) under the provisions of the of Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provisions) Act, 1985. TCIL was declared sick on or about December 18, 1992.
(3.) TCIL had two principal units: at Tangra and at Kankinara, North 24- Parganas. The Tangra manufacturing facility of TCIL was on a land measuring in excess of 16 acre of which a three-acre portion was owned by the family of Sircars which had been leased out in 1955 as noticed above. There were apparently four branches of the Sircar family.;