The Supreme Court has set aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court order directing a CBI probe into the construction of Ambience Mall in Gurugram, ruling that the intervention was based on flawed assumptions and unsupported claims, thereby bringing relief to the developer and reaffirming limits on judicial interference in contractual disputes.
The controversy stemmed from a writ petition filed by apartment buyers alleging that commercial construction had been wrongly permitted on land originally meant for group housing and that they were misled into signing the Apartment Buyers’ Agreement. Acting on these claims, the High Court in 2020 ordered a CBI investigation. The developer challenged this before the Supreme Court, arguing that the land-use pattern was clearly disclosed from the outset, the agreements were executed with full knowledge, and the buyers had approached the court after an unexplained and substantial delay.
A bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Sandeep Mehta held that the High Court had overlooked foundational pleadings, approved layout plans, and the express terms of the 2001 Apartment Buyers’ Agreement, which clearly earmarked a portion of the licensed land for commercial use. The Court rejected the allegation that buyers were forced to sign the agreement without awareness, noting that such a plea surfaced only at the rejoinder stage.
Terming the High Court’s approach speculative, the bench observed that “the finding recorded by the High Court that the flat owners were made to sign on the dotted line is ex facie conjectural and unsupported by any pleadings or credible material,” and consequently quashed the direction for a CBI probe as unsustainable in law.
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