“The KMC House cannot allow discussion on any issue which is sub judice. Hence, I have rejected the adjournment motion regarding the Park Circus Market,” Mukherjee said at the civic body’s monthly meeting on Wednesday.

The meeting comes after Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, at a gathering in the Park Circus Market last Monday, asked party councillors to bring an adjournment motion against the Reliance deal at KMC.

“We were asked by party chief Mamata Banerjee to bring in the motion. We have abided by her decision,” said Javed Ahmed Khan, KMC’s Opposition leader.

During the last state Assembly session, Trinamool leader Sougato Roy had indirectly accepted the arrival of private industry in the retail sector. On being asked why Roy had expressed a different stand on the issue in the Assembly, Javed Khan said: “It was a separate issue. It has nothing to do with today’s protest.”

The four Forward Bloc councillors in KMC, however, seem to be tight-lipped regarding the issue. None of them supported the traders of Park Circus Market who had come to the civic body’s headqueartes on Tuesday to protest against the KMC-Reliance deal.

“My party is against private giants coming in the retail sector,” said Subodh De, Forward Bloc-backed MMiC.