Shamima Yasmin, additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Revenue, said her office requires at least 15 days to begin work on revoking the lease that they issued in 2002.

On June 17 this year, Department of Archaeology (DoA) officially asked the DC of Dhaka to immediately cancel the lease of Shankhanidhi House, a listed historical structure on Tipu Sultan Road in the old part of the city, and hand it back to the DoA.

DC Kamaluddin has confirmed the receipt of the letter. He said that starting the process of cancelling the lease will take time, as they have many other things to deal with.

"We have many important works so it will take time before we start the process of cancellation," he said.

"There are also humanitarian issues related with the cancellation. We cannot just evict the present occupants," said ADC Revenue Shamima Yasmin.

ADC Revenue office of the DC office leased out two-thirds of the historical Shankhanidhi House on February 2, 2002.

Ananda Gopal Sankhanidhi, the successor of the Sankhanidhi family visited Dhaka in May and urged the authorities to preserve this historical site.

A building with significant architectural features, Shankhanidhi House now houses an automobile workshop, lube shops, two families and an office of workshop owners association.

Present inhabitants of the house have changed its original features according to their whims, while an automobile workshop rented out by lessees in the ground floor has blackened the beautiful courtyard.

According to an inscription, whitewashed at present, it was built in 1921 by two merchant brothers Lal Mohan Saha and Gaur Nitai Saha.

Following reports published in the Star City, the DoA said that they would send a letter to the DC office asking them to cancel the lease.

The DoA move came after Paribesh Bachao Andolon, an environmental group, urged the DoA to free the historical site from an illegal lease issued by the DC office in 2002, defying the law of the land.