After Public Hearings, Mohali Aerotropolis Enters Its Biggest Test Yet ## सार्वजनिक सुनवाई के बाद, मोहाली एयरोट्रोपोलिस अपनी सबसे बड़ी परीक्षा में प्रवेश कर रहा है सार्वजनिक सुनवाई के बाद, मोहाली एयरोट्रोपोलिस अब अपनी सबसे बड़ी परीक्षा में प्रवेश कर रहा है। ## ਜਨਤਕ ਸੁਣਵਾਈਆਂ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ, Mohali Aerotropolis ਆਪਣੀ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਡੀ ਪ੍ਰੀਖਿਆ ਵਿੱਚ ਦਾਖਲ

The Day It Got Complicated

GMADA thought it had cleared the last gate. The Section 5 hearings were done. The objections were recorded. The award was next. Then, on June 14, the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued a notice of motion to the Punjab government on a fresh petition by affected landowners, and extended an earlier stay on passing the award.

The Division Bench of Justice Sandeep Moudgil and Justice Rohit Kapoor is hearing a petition filed by Jarnail Singh and others. They have challenged the acquisition notifications dated December 9, 2025 and March 24, 2026, under LARR 2013. The stay that was already in place has now been renewed. The award cannot be passed while it holds.

That matters more than it sounds. Under the LARR Act, the Section 30 award is the moment the government earns the right to physically enter the land. No award, no possession. No possession, no development. The court has frozen that step.

How It Got Here: Six Months of Resistance

This did not come out of nowhere.

In January 2026, landowners from eight villages formed opposition committees after the Social Impact Assessment wrapped up. Their complaint was not just about money. They argued that the land pooling model is structurally skewed: GMADA takes the commercial plots along the main roads for itself and hands landowners the quieter plots behind. You give your ancestral land and get back something less valuable in a different location. That grievance runs deeper than a rate dispute.

By March 25, sixteen villages had had enough. Landowners started a permanent sit-in outside the GMADA office in Phase VIII. A morning meeting with the Chief Administrator that day went nowhere. Slogans went up. The protest dug in.

The government moved in April. Housing Minister Hardeep Singh Mundian came to the protest site himself, along with Mohali MLA Kulwant Singh, and ended the relay hunger strike by fifteen villages by reading out and handing over a written list of accepted demands. The concessions were real: acquisition only with farmer consent for E through J, government schools, panchayat buildings, parks, and dispensaries excluded from the acquisition perimeter, village sewerage, water supply, and stormwater systems to be integrated with GMADA infrastructure, and GMADA to cover costs if any department could not.

It was not enough. Within days, protesters from a dozen villages called the whole package meaningless for small landowners. The core demand had not been touched: take Durali village's land out of the Red Zone industrial classification. That one did not make it into Mundian's written document, and the holdouts noticed immediately.

Public hearings ran across the affected villages through May. The statutory process kept moving. Then June 14 arrived.

What the Stay Actually Freezes

To be clear about what the court has and has not done: it has not struck down the acquisition. It has not ruled in the landowners' favour. It has issued a notice, which means the state must respond, and it has extended a stay that prevents the award from being passed while the petition is heard.

The acquisition process is still alive. It just cannot take the next step.

How quickly this moves depends on the court's schedule and whether the parties find a negotiated way out before a judgment comes. Aerotropolis acquisition has a history of resolving through political deals rather than courtroom verdicts. The Mundian concessions were one attempt at that. They did not hold. Another attempt is now likely, with the HC watching.

What This Means for A-D Pocket Holders

The E-J challenge has nothing to do with Pockets A through D. That land is already acquired. Compensation awards were announced at over 19 crore rupees per acre. Phase 1 infrastructure, the grid roads, drainage, and utilities across B, C, and D, is contracted and under construction. Buyers holding LOIs in A through D are in cleared land. June 14 does not change their position.

What it does affect is the broader story. The Aerotropolis gets its full 5,500-acre scale only when E through J are developed. That is when A-D stops being a standalone township and becomes the most mature, most established corner of something much larger. A delay on E-J does not break A-D's fundamentals. But it stretches the timeline on which that larger thing arrives.

The Gate That Just Opened Again

The public hearings were supposed to be the last obstacle before the award. GMADA cleared them. Then the court opened a gate everyone thought was behind them.

Punjab's political clock is running. The AAP government has said publicly it wants E through J substantially underway before its term ends in March 2027. A High Court notice issued on June 14 puts real pressure on that deadline. The gap between the government's ambition and the ground reality just got a little wider.

Sources:
- The Tribune, High Court puts Mohali Aero City Expansion Project land acquisition under scanner (14 June 2026)
- The Tribune, Landowners begin dharna in front of GMADA office (25 March 2026)
- The Tribune, Punjab farmers' consent a must in Aerotropolis Mohali land acquisition (14 April 2026)
- The Tribune, Landowners reject GMADA acquisition, demand Durali village out of Red Zone (19 April 2026)
- The Tribune, Aerotropolis landowners of 8 villages form committees (January 2026)
- GMADA public notices, Aerotropolis E-J and public hearing schedule (May 2026)
- Mohali Aerotropolis notices page, public hearing notices (May 2026)