Article 300A of the Constitution protects citizens from being deprived of property except by authority of law, the Calcutta High Court reiterated. (Image generated using AI) Calcutta High Court news: A road built during the Emergency-era land requisition regime has come back to haunt the West Bengal government nearly half a century later, with the Calcutta High Court ruling that the state cannot keep citizens’ land “forcibly and without authority of law” after failing to complete acquisition proceedings or pay compensation for decades. Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya was hearing a writ petition filed by Champabati Bera and others, whose land in Paschim Medinipur district was requisitioned in the late 1970s for the construction of the Sabong-Mohar Road but was never formally acquired. Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya stated that if a citizen’s property has been utilised for a public purpose, the state is obliged to pay fair compensation.…