Demolition notice to Abhishek Banerjee for illegal construction in his house, 'Shantiniketan'

Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) had officially issued a compliance notice to Trinamool Congress (TMC) All India General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee regarding his prime residential properties. The statutory warning, which has been physically hung on the gates of his high-security 'Shantiniketan' residence on Harish Mukherjee Road and a family-owned asset on Kalighat Road, demands the immediate submission of sanctioned building plans and matching land deeds. The administrative action implements a zero-tolerance policy against unauthorized urban encroachments vowed by newly sworn-in Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.

The legal intervention specifically targeting the Diamond Harbour MP’s personal real estate portfolio was deployed under Section 401 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Building Act. Through the notice, the civic body’s building department has demanded comprehensive architectural layouts to evaluate whether the multi-story modifications made to the Shantiniketan estate and the Kalighat Road property—the latter tied to the corporate profile of Leaps and Bounds—were executed within permissible legal thresholds. KMC has warned that if structural deviations are detected, the illegal extensions must be voluntarily dismantled within a strict seven-day timeline, failing which municipal engineering crews will deploy active bulldozers to clear the violations.

The sudden enforcement has triggered major internal confusion within the civic body, as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation continues to be operationally led by an administrative board belonging to the Trinamool Congress. Addressing the media regarding the high-profile demolition warning, Kolkata Mayor and senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim completely distanced himself from the administrative process. Hakim explicitly claimed that he knew absolutely nothing about the file beforehand, stating that the building department had not made any prior communication or consultations with his executive desk before serving the notices.