Indian Economist and winner of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Amartya Sen’s name has come up in a list of illegal plot holders.
His name has been mentioned in a letter sent by the Vishwa Bharati University to the West Bengal state government, Times of India has reported.
This letter has caused a lot of embarrassment as it lists out unauthorised occupants of the university land while claiming that dozens of its plots “have been recorded wrongly in favour of private parties”.
In what can be called a scathing indictment, the letter has information on the wrong recording of ownership in government’s record-of-right (RoR).
That has resulted in the university’s land being illegally transferred allowing private players to set up restaurants, schools and businesses on land which was procured by India’s first Nobel Laureate Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.
On Amartya Sen, the letter states that he is illegally occupying 13 decimals of land, roughly over 5600 square feet (sq ft), which is over and above the 125 decimals land legally leased to his late father.
In 2006, Sen, who has considerable influence in India as a leading left intellectual wrote to the then vice-chancellor to transfer the land in his name, which was approved but the excess land was not returned to the university
The estate official has been quoted as saying in a report, “Sen is well aware that he is occupying a good quantum of university’s land unauthorisedly”. Also, the letter adds that the Sen family benefited by selling plots near the campus.