The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has refused to entertain a petition filed by Sahara India Commercial Corporation Limited challenging the Lucknow Municipal Corporation’s (LMC) decision to cancel the land lease of the iconic ‘Sahara Shahar’ complex.
In an order passed on April 22, a division bench comprising Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla ruled that the petition was not maintainable. The court noted that because the Sahara Shahar property is already a subject of litigation before the Supreme Court of India—where both Sahara and the LMC have filed applications and objections—the High Court cannot parallelly adjudicate the matter.
“We find our hands tied in proceeding any further in the matter,” the bench remarked while dismissing the petition.
The legal battle stems from two orders issued by the Lucknow Municipal Corporation in September 2025. On September 8, 2025, the LMC cancelled the land lease originally granted to Sahara on October 22, 1994. This was followed by a subsequent order on September 11, 2025, directing the company to vacate the premises.
Sahara India Commercial Corporation Limited moved the High Court seeking to quash these orders. The company argued that the LMC had overlooked a favorable arbitration order passed on September 2, 2017, regarding the land. Sahara further contended that the lease cancellation was wrongful as the company was prepared to deposit the necessary funds to secure a lease extension.
The LMC, however, strongly opposed the petition, leading the court to examine the broader legal context surrounding Sahara’s assets.
During the proceedings, the High Court observed that the Sahara Group is currently embroiled in contempt petitions before the Supreme Court related to the long-standing Sahara-SEBI dispute.
Significantly, the bench noted that on September 14, 2025, Sahara moved an application before the apex court seeking permission to hand over several of its properties to the Adani Group. The objective of this proposed transaction is to generate funds to be deposited into the Sahara-SEBI account, thereby ensuring compliance with prior Supreme Court directives.
The court found that ‘Sahara Shahar’ was specifically included in the list of properties Sahara intended to transfer to the Adani Group.
Given that the Supreme Court is already seized of the matter and has issued interim orders on various dates regarding these properties, the High Court concluded that there was no justification for a separate intervention at the state level.
The bench emphasized that since the LMC has already filed its objections to Sahara’s proposal in the apex court, the jurisdiction for resolving the lease and possession dispute currently rests with the higher judiciary.
