The 50,000-square-metre sprawl, down the road from Delhi Metro’s Vidhan Sabha station, is cordoned off by tin sheets. This is the Khyber Pass plot, excavated, with iron girders dug into the earth and then abruptly left rusting since work stopped eight months ago. Earmarked by MGF Builders for a mall, inside the gates, a plush, deserted office is manned by their site engineer. Ask him when work will resume and he says he has no idea.

There are 14 such plots adding up to at least 75 acres worth more than Rs 1000 crore (see graphic) — prime property auctioned but sitting idle because of a fight between the Delhi Metro Railway Corporation (DMRC) which owns it and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) which is waving a Rs 452-crore property tax bill.

This is part of the land that the Delhi Metro Railway Corporation got from the government — to build the Metro — on concessional rates. Whatever was surplus, like these 15 plots, the DMRC was allowed to develop. So beginning September 2003, it auctioned leases of these plots to four developers for both commercial and residential use. The last auction was in March this year.

But no work can begin as the MCD is refusing to clear developers’ building plans and layouts unless the DMRC coughs up the tax.

MCD argues that DMRC got prime property at throwaway prices and is making money by leasing it out, indulging in “heavy commercial development” at its stations.

DMRC, in turn, quotes the Delhi Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act 2002 to say it’s not required to pay property tax to MCD. It also cites the Indian Railways Act, 1989 which has the same provision. Both face off in the Delhi High Court tomorrow.

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