Visva-Bharati serves final eviction notice to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen

Visva-Bharati University on Thursday issued the final eviction notice to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen stating that the institution will pass its eviction order on April 19 to take back a portion of the land covered by Sen’s ancestral property on the campus at Santiniketan in Bengal’s Birbhum district.

Visva-Bharati’s joint registrar and estate officer AK Mahato passed the final notice under Public Premises (Eviction and Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971.

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HT has reviewed the document.

The Prime Minister is the chancellor of Visva-Bharati which is Bengal’s only central university.

The vice-chancellor, Bidyut Chakrabarty, claimed in 2022 that Sen’s father, Ashutosh Sen, who was a professor at Visva-Bharati’s, rented only 1.25 acres of land on a 99-year lease in 1943 and the remaining .13 decimal is being illegally occupied.

The university sent three letters to Sen since January 24 and issued an eviction notice on March 17 asking him to put up his argument.

Sen neither replied to the notice himself nor appeared in person for the hearings during his stay at Santiniketan earlier this year.

He also did not move any court. Sen sent his lawyers to the university, but their arguments were not accepted.

In Thursday’s notice, the joint registrar wrote, “I, therefore, have come to the understanding that the alleged unauthorized occupant does not want to face this inquiry; rather he wants to subvert or bypass this proceeding by other means including initiating proceedings at other forum.”

It could not be ascertained by HT whether the 89-year-old economist received the notice since he has returned to the USA, where he lives most of the time.

“Acting on a request from Sen’s lawyers, the executive magistrate of Bolpur has asked the local police to maintain peace at the site,” a senior district official said on condition of anonymity.

On January 30, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee met Sen at Santiniketan and gave him a document stating that all 1.38 decimal covered by the property belong to him.

The university had challenged this document.

Sen received the Nobel award in 1998 and was honoured with the Bharat Ratna by the Centre in 1999.

His grandfather, Kshiti Mohan Sen, an eminent scholar, was a close associate of Rabindranath Tagore who set up Visva Bharati in 1921. Kshiti Mohan Sen was the second vice-chancellor.