Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Wednesday directed Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Kolkata Police to immediately remove encroachments around the city’s oldest Parsi fire temple to facilitate its repair and restoration.Justice Arindam Mukherjee issued the order after a report, prepared by the KMC environment and heritage department, was submitted to the court.He directed the KMC, police authorities and administrator general to comply with previous orders and clear stalls and shops encroaching upon the temple’s land.The court observed that the stalls were hindering the repair, renovation and restoration of the historic structure. The court had earlier ordered the removal of decorative-light shops and other unauthorised occupants from the compound and approaches to the fire temple at 26, Ezra Street by July 15.Justice Mukherjee had said the area must be cleared so that the repair teams and conservation experts could access the Grade I heritage structure and materials needed for its restoration could be taken to its premises.The agiary, listed as Rustomjee Cowasjee Church in KMC records, was established by Parsi businessman, shipbuilder and philanthropist Rustomjee Cowasjee Banajee. It survived a fire that gutted surrounding shops. Although heat and flames damaged its exterior plaster and a wooden beam, its thick brick walls, Tuscan pillars and inner sanctum remained structurally intact.Consecrated on Sept 16, 1839, Rustomjee Cowasjee Banajee Agiary was the first Parsi fire temple in eastern India. Banajee, or “Rustomji Babu”, was the first Parsi to have settled permanently in Kolkata with his family and owned Calcutta Docking Company. He built the agiary to provide the Parsi community with a formal place of worship. Its inauguration was attended by prominent people, including Dwarkanath Tagore.
