Punjab & Haryana High Court Quashes PIL, Clearing Path for Global City Gurugram E-Auctions

What the court decided

The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the last Public Interest Litigation filed by the Gram Panchayat Garauli Khurd, regarding 1080 acres of HSIIDC land, and this decision paved the way for the e-auction of land parcels in the Global City project. The ruling was reported on 20 January 2023, with the order itself passed on the preceding Thursday. The court quashed the last public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the gram panchayat of Garauli Khurd regarding 1,080 acres of HSIIDC land, and this decision paved the way for the e-auction of land parcels in the Global City project.

State government's response

After the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the public interest litigation against it, the Haryana Government said that this had cleared the way for the multi-crore Gurugram Global City project, to be set up on land owned by the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) in Gurugram. Officials said the ruling had paved the way for the e-auction of land parcels in the Global City project being set up on 1003 acres of HSIIDC land. An official spokesperson said that it would now be easier to execute the various activities related to the project.

Land, location and scope covered by the decision

The official spokesperson said that 1003 acres of HSIIDC land in villages Khandsa, Narsinghpur, Mohammadpur Jharsa, Garauli Khurd and Garhi Harsaru in the Gurugram district is being used for the development of the mega project of Global City. The HSIIDC is the developer of the Global City project, and road, water and other arrangements will be provided by HSIIDC. The project footprint is commonly described as spanning Sectors 36, 36B, 37, 37A and 37B along the Dwarka Expressway. Other sources describe Global City Gurugram as a mixed-use smart township spanning 1,002.36 acres across Sectors 36, 36B, 37, 37A, and 37B along the Dwarka Expressway.

Development terms already in motion at the time of the ruling

Officials said tenders for development works worth Rs 900 crore regarding the Global City had already been floated. The construction of plots is to be done only by companies that have invested in the project, and plots in Global City would be auctioned on the mixed land-use format.

What happened after the ruling: from clearance to e-auctions

The court's clearance did not itself allot land — it removed a pending legal obstacle so HSIIDC could proceed with auctions. In practice, the roll-out of e-auctions took most of 2023 to begin and continued in stages afterward:

• In November 2023, HSIIDC invited bids for four mixed-use plots totalling 172.76 acres, with registration closing 20 November 2023 and the auction held on 5 December 2023.
• Those parcels carried specific use splits: two plots of 86.05 and 23.76 acres were designated 65% commercial/35% residential, a 58.11-acre plot was 50-50 commercial-residential, and a 4.84-acre plot was reserved for institutional (school) use.
• After further delay linked to disputed land parcels, HSIIDC later invited bids to auction three additional mixed-use sites totalling 142.52 acres, with the e-auction held on 19 May and bidder registration closing 1 May.
• The project is expected to be built on approximately 1,000 acres across Khandsa, Narsinghpur, Mohammadpur Jharsa, Garauli Khurd and Garhi Harsaru, and under the Gurgaon-Manesar Urban Complex 2031 plan the state gave in-principle approval to redesignate roughly 1,000 acres as a special mixed land-use zone with a 300 floor-area-ratio provision.

Why the ruling mattered

Village-level PILs over land acquisition and ownership are a recurring source of delay for large state-sponsored land assembly projects in Haryana. By disposing of the Garauli Khurd panchayat's challenge, the High Court removed what officials described as the final outstanding litigation blocking the auction process on the HSIIDC-owned Global City land, allowing the state corporation to move from land assembly and planning toward monetisation through e-auctions of individual plots to private developers.