Delhi High Court pulls up DDA for delay in deciding property conversion applications

The Delhi High Court on Friday expressed serious concern over the inaction by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in deciding long-pending applications seeking conversion of commercial properties from leasehold to freehold.

A division bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh and Justice Vikas Mahajan that the authority cannot indefinitely withhold such requests.

Thus, the Court directed DDA to hold consultations with the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and the Delhi government to take an urgent decision on the matter.

It also directed the vice chairman of the authority to file a status report and appear before the Court on the next date of hearing on July 30.

The Bench made the observations while hearing a petition filed by the DDA challenging orders passed by the Court at the behest of the property owners to process the conversion applications.

The issue of non-processing of the applications was raised by a few property owners at DLF South Court Mall in Saket. They had applied to DDA in 2023 seeking conversion of their properties from leasehold to freehold.

It was stated that they paid the conversion charges demanded by DDA but the property transfer was not given effect though DDA levied GST on the petitioners retrospectively.

On December 5, 2025, the High Court directed DDA to process the applications based on an undertaking by the petitioners that they would honour the GST demand in the event they did not succeed in the petition.

Due to non-compliance, the property owners again moved the Court, and by orders passed on February 11 and March 18, DDA was again directed to process the applications. 

The DDA has challenged these directions on which today’s order was passed. 

During today’s hearing, the Court noted that the DDA had stalled all the conversion applications for the past several months.

The Court termed it a "serious matter" and observed that DDA’s delay in decision-making had brought property transactions in the city to a standstill.

The Court stated that the disruption had begun affecting family settlements, property sale, succession arrangements and other private transactions.

It added that several cooperative societies and groups of citizens had been complaining about DDA’s non-processing of conversion applications. Further, the Bench said that the DDA could not keep all conversion applications in abeyance on the ground that its Interactive Disposal of Land Information System (IDLI portal) has not been functioning.

Advocates Saurabh Seth, Sumer D Seth, Neelampreet Kaur, Abhiroop Rathore, Kabir Dev and Sukhvir Singh appeared for the property owners.