The fire authority found serious lapses at the two floors, an expired fire-safety certificate, an encroached driveway, LPG cylinders in a cafeteria, an inadequate alarm system, and ordered the premises vacated. But the occupier had filed a detailed reply saying it had already fixed several of the defects and would comply with the rest. The Court held the authority passed its order the very next day without considering that reply, without re-inspecting, and without serving the order on the occupier, and quashed it for fresh consideration.
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has set aside an order of the West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services directing the All India Trinamool Congress to vacate the sixth and seventh floors of its office premises on Camac Street in Kolkata over fire-safety deficiencies, holding that the authority passed the order without considering the occupier’s reply, without carrying out a fresh inspection, and without serving the order on the occupier whose rights it affected [All India Trinamool Congress v. State of West Bengal and Others].
Justice Krishna Rao quashed the order and directed the authority to reconsider the reply and inspect the premises afresh after notice.
The background
The petitioner occupies the two floors under a lease of March 2020. On September 1, 2026, the Director-in-Charge of the Fire and Emergency Services issued a notice of hearing to the petitioner as occupier and to the owner, alleging non-compliance with fire-safety measures. The allegations included that a valid renewal of the fire-safety certificate was not found, that a mild-steel structure had been constructed encroaching the driveway and hindering the movement of fire appliances, that LPG cylinders were stored in the seventh-floor kitchen area, that the pump sequence and riser water supply were deficient, that there was only one exit from the office to the seventh-floor corridor, and that the fire alarm and detection system was inadequate and non-functional.
The petitioner filed a detailed reply on September 3, stating that it had removed the encroaching structure so that the driveway was clear, removed the LPG cylinders, that the riser valve had merely been kept non-operational during maintenance, that there were in fact two exits, and setting out the fire sprinklers and smoke detectors already installed. It stated that it was ready and willing to extend full cooperation and to install all applicable fire and life-safety equipment as required. The next day, September 4, the Director-in-Charge passed the impugned order directing the premises to be vacated.
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The maintainability objection
The State’s Advocate General objected that the writ petition was not maintainable because the order was appealable under Section 11-I of the West Bengal Fire Services Act, 1950. The Court examined the statutory scheme and rejected the objection.
The notice of hearing, it found, had been issued under Section 37A of the Act, which falls under the Miscellaneous chapter. Section 11-I provides an appeal only against an order passed under Chapter IIIA on fire prevention and fire safety, and Section 38 provides an appeal only against orders under Sections 35, 36 or 37. Since the impugned order was passed under Section 37A, the Court held that neither appeal provision applied, so the petitioner had no statutory appellate remedy and the writ petition was maintainable.
Why the order was quashed
On the merits, the Court found a clear failure of natural justice. The petitioner had submitted its reply on September 3, and the very next day the authority passed the vacate order without dealing with that reply at all. No inspection was carried out after the reply to verify whether the defects the petitioner claimed to have cured had in fact been cured.
The Court also recorded a telling detail on service. The impugned order was communicated to the owner and not to the petitioner, even though it affected the petitioner’s rights. And the owner’s own reply to the hearing notice was submitted only on September 4 at 16:32 hours, that is, after the impugned order had already been passed, which showed that the order had been made without any reply from the owner before it either.
Holding that the authority ought to have granted the petitioner time to comply where it had expressed readiness to install all fire-safety requirements, the Court set the order aside and directed the Director-in-Charge to reconsider the September 3 reply, to inspect the premises afresh after issuing notice to the petitioner, and, if further shortcomings were found, to inform the petitioner to complete them. It made clear that if the petitioner then failed to comply, the authority would be at liberty to take appropriate action in accordance with law.
Why it matters
The ruling is a straightforward application of natural justice to a regulatory order, and its logic has nothing to do with the identity of the occupier. When an authority issues a show-cause notice, invites a reply, and then passes a drastic order the day after the reply is filed without engaging with a word of it, the order cannot stand, however serious the underlying allegations. The hearing must be real, not a formality; a reply that is received but not considered is the same, in law, as no hearing at all.
Two features made the defect stark. The petitioner had not stonewalled; it had claimed to have already cured several of the specific lapses, the encroachment and the cylinders among them, which meant the factual basis of the vacate order may have shifted between the inspection and the order, and only a fresh inspection could tell. And the order was not even served on the occupier whose premises were to be vacated, which is close to a textbook denial of the right to be heard and to challenge. The Court’s direction, reconsider the reply, re-inspect on notice, and act only on what is then found, restores the process the statute contemplates.
It is worth being clear about what the judgment does not do. It does not hold that the premises are fire-safe, or that the fire authority cannot order them vacated; it holds only that this order, passed in this manner, cannot be sustained, and it expressly preserves the authority’s power to act, including to order vacation, if the defects remain after a proper fresh inspection. Fire-safety enforcement and the right to a fair hearing are not in conflict here; the Court has required the enforcement to be done correctly, not stopped it. That the occupier is a political party is incidental to a ruling that would read the same way for any tenant.
Case Title: All India Trinamool Congress v. State of West Bengal and Others [W.P.A. No. 24876 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Krishna Rao, High Court at Calcutta (Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction, Appellate Side)
Hearing Concluded: September 11, 2026 | Judgment Delivered: September 16, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocate Kishore Datta with advocates for the petitioner. Advocate General Surojit Nath Mitra with the Additional Advocate General and others for the State. Senior Advocate Soumya Majumder for the owner. Advocate for CESC Ltd.
Status: Impugned vacate order set aside. Authority directed to reconsider the reply and re-inspect after notice; liberty to act if defects remain.