The High Court on Sunday asked the Imam Gazzali Institute to vacate the ancestral house of Suchitra Sen, Bangla movies’ legendary actress, and hand it over to the government within two months.
The bench of Justice Hasan Foez Siddique and Md Jahangir Hossain also asked the government to implement the plan to set up a centre there to preserve her memory.
The court issued the directive in its judgment delivered in response to two public interest litigation writ petitions filed to free the house from the possession of illegal occupants.
One of the writ petitions was filed by the Imam Gazzali Institute in 2009, challenging a government order that had asked the institution to vacate Suchitra Sen’s paternal house.
The other petition was filed by the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh on July 26 this year to ensure the protection and maintenance of the house.
After the hearing, the High Court bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore on July 26 directed the authorities to recover Suchitra’s house within seven days. The court also directed the authorities to take legal action against the grabbers and submit a report within 10 days.
After hearing an appeal filed the Imam Gazzali Institute against the High Court’s order, the Appellate Division on August 4 ordered maintenance of status quo in connection with the house, and asked both the parties in the case for expeditious disposal of the rules that the High Court Division had issued with regard to the house.
Screen legend Suchitra Sen turned 80 on April 6. She was born in her maternal grandfather’s house in Bhangabari village in Pabna, and grew up at Gopalpur in Pabna town.
Unfortunately her ancestral home is still occupied by the Imam Gazzali Institute, despite deep resentment in the locals. The people of the district want the historic house to be freed from illegal occupation and restored to its former condition.
Suchitra, whose original name was Rama Dasgupta, started her academic career at Mahakali Pathshala in Pabna town, and later studied at Pabna Girls School (now Pabna Government Girls High School).
According to the elderly people of the district, Suchitra’s father, Karunamoy Dasgupta, left Pabna with his whole family just before the Partition in 1947.
-With New Age input
