Court orders demolition of two towers at Gulmohar Greens, Mohan Nagar

The Allahabad High Court has ordered the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) to demolish Towers 27 and 28 of Gulmohar Greens Society in Mohan Nagar, Ghaziabad, after finding that the layout was built illegally and later regularised through a compounding order. The order, reported from Prayagraj on 28 October 2026, also directs the removal of the unauthorised ninth and tenth floors of Towers 16, 17, 18 and 19. The society is a short distance from the Mohan Nagar metro station on the Red Line of the Delhi Metro, which opened in March 2019.

What the court has ordered

• Demolition of Towers 27 and 28 by the GDA within two months.
• Removal of the unauthorised ninth and tenth floors of Towers 16, 17, 18 and 19 within two months.
• A penalty of ₹25 lakh on the builder, payable into the Gulmohar Greens residents' welfare association account within one month.
• Refunds to 85 buyers, with 10% interest, from the builder. The order does not give a deadline for these refunds in the reports.
• Costs of ₹50,000 to each of the eleven petitioners, to be paid by the GDA within two months.
• An FIR against the promoter within two weeks, with the probe to be run by an officer of Additional Commissioner of Police rank.

The bench of Justices Saral Srivastava and Sudhanshu Chauhan heard a petition by eleven apartment owners, along with a 2015 writ petition filed by the society's residents' association. In its nearly 95-page judgment, the court directed the promoter to repay the demolition expenses as arrears of land revenue, and asked the district administration and police to give GDA officials enough security to carry out the work.

How the compounding was set aside

The GDA compounded the layout three times, in November 2011, January 2015 and December 2024. The court set aside the third order, dated 18 December 2024, which had regularised the ninth and tenth floors of four towers and allowed two more towers. It held that these additional constructions could not be compounded. The court did not disturb the first two compoundings, even while calling them illegal, because third parties now have interests in those homes and the petitioners had not challenged those two maps. The towers built under the third order have not been sold, so the court ordered them demolished.

The court found that the GDA had colluded with the promoter, allowing flats to be sold and occupied without a completion certificate. It said that sanctioning the third compounding order despite knowledge of the violations was a dereliction of duty by the GDA's then Vice-Chairman. The state government must start a disciplinary inquiry against him within one month. The court also ordered the immediate suspension of investigating officer Surendra Singh, who had given the builder a clean chit in a 2018 FIR without conducting an investigation. The court took a strict view of the illegal sale of common areas and expressed strong displeasure over the absence of a Fire NOC and a completion certificate.

What it means for residents and buyers

Suresh Chandra Singhal, a former president of the society's apartment owners' association, said the verdict brought relief. "We have been living in the society since 2010, but the builder has still not obtained the completion certificate (CC). Residents continue to face several problems," he said. He wants the builder to finish pending work and hand over society assets to the existing association. Petitioner Prateek Tiwari said the judgment would set a precedent for other high-rise residential societies across Delhi-NCR. He said the fire department had put up a notice at the main entrance saying the society was unsafe from a fire safety perspective. This is his account; the court did not make that finding. The bench noted that the project began in the mid-2000s and remained incomplete two decades later.

For buyers, the order draws a line between flats under the first two compoundings, which the court has left in place, and units under the third order, which must be demolished. Anyone considering a resale or a purchase in an older Mohan Nagar society should ask for the completion certificate and the compounding history before committing. A flat without a completion certificate can be occupied, but it carries the risk of the kind of legal dispute now being decided here. Residents will be watching the two-month deadline for the GDA, which will show whether the order is carried out on the ground.