A Delhi High Court bench has done what a Delhi civic agency thought was long overdue: turned down an order that could have drained crores in public money while letting a luxury hotel chain sit on prime Lutyens’ Delhi land for a fraction of what it’s worth. 

On April 22, A division bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela cleared the path for New Delhi Municipal Council to recover Rs 1,063.74 crore from Bharat Hotels Ltd, the company that runs The LaLiT Hotels. 

The ruling they overturned? Delivered by Justice Yashwant Varma on December 6, 2023 – roughly over a year before he was allegedly caught in a ‘cash at home’ controversy while he was still a judge in the Delhi High Court. He had resigned earlier this month amid an inquiry into the incident after impeachment proceedings were initiated against him.

The dispute and its judgments

The dispute centres on a 6.0485-acre plot on Barakhamba Lane. 

In 1982, with the Asian Games months away and Delhi short on hotel rooms, NDMC’s predecessor granted Bharat Hotels a 99-year licence to build and run a five-star hotel on the site, at an annual fee of Rs 1.45 crore. The deed allowed the license fee to be revised every 33 years, but capped any increase at 100 per cent of the last fee. 

On February 13, 2020,........

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