A New Jersey appeals court has cleared the way for a Hoboken cannabis company to proceed with a lawsuit against a former mayor who the firm says torpedoed its dispensary application in a political deal.

A panel of appeals court judges ruled Tuesday that Nature’s Touch can move forward with a lawsuit claiming then-Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla intentionally blocked its cannabis dispensary application after a city board endorsed it. The lawsuit says Bhalla blocked the application as a political favor for outgoing Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, whose wife co-owns a competing dispensary.

Bhalla has denied any wrongdoing. His attorneys didn’t respond to requests to comment on the judge’s ruling.

Fulop and his wife could not immediately be reached to comment.

Bhalla opted not to seek a third term as mayor in Hoboken last year and won a seat in the state Assembly in November.

Fulop also announced last year he would not seek another term as Jersey City mayor and take a job as head of Partnership for New York City, a business coalition.

The Hoboken Cannabis Review Board approved the application for the Nature’s Touch dispensary in 2022, according to court records. But Bhalla didn’t sign the required letter of support, effectively killing the application.

Weeks later, the board approved an application for another Hoboken dispensary co-owned by Fulop’s wife, Jaclyn Fulop, according to the complaint.

Nature’s Touch didn’t sue the city or Bhalla until May 2024 because that’s when the alleged scheme came to light, the company said.

Court filings in a separate whistleblower lawsuit filed by former Hoboken official Pantaleo “Leo” Pellegrini against the city claimed Fulop was “extremely upset and very angry” about the board’s decision to support Nature’s Touch’s application because his wife planned to open a competing dispensary in Hoboken.

Bhalla allegedly said he would be “quashing” Nature’s Touch’s application and, in exchange, Fulop promised to provide legal work for Bhalla’s private law firm, the lawsuit claims.

Bhalla’s legal team sought to dismiss the cannabis company’s case, arguing that Nature’s Touch filed its claims too late and the allegations lacked merit. The former mayor’s lawyers said the company could have sued sooner and there wasn’t any evidence Bhalla acted improperly.

The case now heads back to the lower court. Lawyers for Nature’s Touch will seek documents and testimony to support their claim that political motivations and personal gain influenced the licensing decision.

“If in fact it’s proven that the allegations in the whistleblower complaint and our complaint are true, we want the people involved to step forward, not only pay the damages, but can we finally get a mea culpa? Can we finally get elected officials to say they were wrong and apologize? We need accountability,” he added.