Raising this point in a big way before a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran on Tuesday, senior advocate Nidesh Gupta said petitioner Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of Bhajan Lal, feels that similar discrepancies existed with the SEZs planned by the UP and Rajasthan governments.

The Bench asked the Haryana government as well as the Union commerce ministry to respond to the petition in four weeks and adjourned hearing till July. The petitioner's main argument was that the Centre, under Article 252 of the Constitution, has been given the right to legislate on NCR comprising Delhi and areas from three states, including agricultural land.

Neither the Central SEZ Act nor the state legislations on special economic zones recognise or take into account the NCR Act thus rendering all of them violative of the constitutional mandate, Gupta stated.

He cited the Supreme Court ruling in the Basavaya case in 1979, which held that once the states surrendered their right to legislate on a subject to the Centre, they could not enact any law on it. And hence, the Haryana SEZ Act was illegal, Gupta said.

He said no change in land use, earmarked for agriculture and urban settlement purposes, could be made as was being proposed to be done by allotting huge tracts of agricultural land for SEZ purposes, without prior approval of the NCRPB. No prior approval had been taken in these cases, he alleged.

NCPRB, in its affidavit, said the Haryana government had prepared the Development Plan-2021 for Gurgaon-Manesar Urban Complex, but the same was not submitted to NCRPB for approval.

"NCRPB has sent its comments/suggestions/objections to the state government after procuring a copy of the said plan. However, major suggestions of the NCRPB have not been incorporated by the Haryana government in the modified final Development Plan-2021 notified by them. Hence, the Development Plan-2021 of Gurgaon-Manesar Urban Complex is not yet in conformity with the Regional Plan-2021," it said.

It said that under the NCRPB Act, 1985, the jurisdiction of the body relating to change of land use extended to Haryana (Faridabad, Gurgaon, Rohtak, Sonepat, Rewari, Jhajjar, Mewat and Panipat districts), Rajasthan (Alwar district) and UP (Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr and Baghpat districts).