A state judge on Thursday ordered the Mamdani administration to quickly produce any emails and text messages between top City Hall officials and an independent board that voted to freeze rents on New York City apartments.

The administration has until Tuesday to provide the communications-if they exist-to a group of landlords who filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the rent freeze. The landlords have accused the mayor of wrongfully influencing the decision by the Rent Guidelines Board. They are seeking any communications between City Hall officials and the board in the belief that they will demonstrate that the mayor held sway over the board.

The freeze is scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 1 and affects roughly one million rent-regulated apartments.

"We are going to have to operate on a more truncated timeline," Justice Brendan Lantry told city lawyers at a state court hearing in Manhattan. He acknowledged that he nonetheless might not rule on a request for a preliminary injunction on the freeze by Oct. 1.

"I'm not going to operate with a shotgun to my head," Lantry said.

The lawsuit challenges one of the mayor's signature campaign pledges and accuses the Rent Guidelines Board of going through a "sham process" before voting 7-1 in June for zero rent increases on most rent-regulated apartments. It alleges the mayor stacked the board with loyalists who manipulated data on landlord expenses and income to reach their conclusion.

Lawyers for the city say board members acted independently and properly reviewed market data before casting their votes.

The judge set the tight deadline for the Mamdani administration at Thursday's hearing, over the objections of city lawyers who initially said they would need two months to provide any potential communications. They described an onerous search process that entails combing through emails and phones of 13 city officials, including the mayor; as well as the records of more than a dozen rent board members and staffers.

Steven Banks, the city's top lawyer, said at the hearing that taking away phones from City Hall officials for even a few hours to look for communications could be disruptive. "The people on this list are running New York City," he said. "Giving up their phone for four to eight hours is not an insignificant thing."

Randy Mastro, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the judge that the city was overstating the complexity of the process. "This is not rocket science," he said.

In a ruling last week, the judge remarked that it was rare and unprecedented for a candidate like Mamdani to guarantee the freeze, considering the board is supposed to act independently of the mayor's office.

"The question naturally arises: how would the mayor comply with his 'guarantee' to the voters to 'freeze' the rent unless he, or his staff, communicated with the board to ensure that the board refrained from imposing any rental increase?" the judge wrote.