The petitioners' lawyer Deepak Balyan told IANS: "We told the court that according to the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Rules, the government could only auction such land."u00a0The petitioners claimed that the land belonged to the village community and the gram panchayat and the state government had no right to sell it to a private firm.u00a0

The Badhsa Gram Panchayat had sent a resolution to the Haryana government Jan 6, 2010 to permit them to sell land to Mukta Arts. On Sep 22, 2010, the government allowed the panchayat to sell 20 acres of land at the rate of Rs.2,409,000 per acre. The deal was sealed Oct 11, 2010.u00a0A court at Bahadurgarh in Jhajjar district earlier dismissed a public suit filed by villagers against Ghai acquiring the land.u00a0