the present invention relates to a cationic lipid based aqueous formulation comprising cationic lipid , dexamethasone and a neutral co - lipid , wherein the said formulation is useful for selective targeting and delivering gene to glucocorticoid receptor expressing cancer cells . glucorticoid receptors express in various normal and cancer cells . a lot of ligand activated physiological functions are known involving gr but its role in cancer progression is not clearly understood . synthetic gr antagonist , dexamethasone finds use as anti - inflammatory drug and is known to induce apoptosis in cancer cells . this dex is included in a cationic lipid - based formulation as a co - lipid to deliver to and express genes specifically in cancer cells possibly through expressed gr . gene delivery to cancer cells is independent of the gene construct , and tumor cell line . normal transformed cells expressing gr but with no cancer lineage show much smaller level of transfection . the composition of the formulation is optimized . the formulation may have particular application to the enhanced delivery of anticancer genetic constructs to cancer , with the synergistic effect of dex in inducing apoptosis as such .