Government’s eviction orders this week to one of India’s oldest and most coveted clubs – the Delhi Gymkhana – is bound to unsettle the management of several elite spaces in the Capital.
Though the threat of vacation has always loomed, considering all these clubs – Gymkhana on Safdarjung Road, Delhi Race Club on Lok Kalyan Marg, Foreign Correspondents’ Club on Mathura Road and Indian Women’s Press Corps on Ashoka Road – stand on prime public land, liberal dispensations in the past allowed the status quo to prevail.
But that is not the case any longer. This year has seen firm government action towards reclamation of public spaces on grounds of “public purpose, national interest and non-compliance of lease and allotment agreements".
It began this March 12 with the Centre issuing a notice of eviction to the 100-year-old Delhi Race Club and Indian Polo Association from the premises located at a stone’s throw from the Prime Minister’s official residence. The Club was asked to pack up in 15 days but Delhi High Court protected it against coercive action. Soon afterward on March 20, the Centre deployed Delhi police personnel to get the United News of India’s Rafi Marg premises vacated. The move followed a Delhi High Court order of eviction capping years of legal battle. The court observed that the allotment of government land to UNI, made in 1979, was subject to the essential condition of constructing a composite office building within a stipulated time frame. The UNI however failed to undertake the construction for over four decades, constituting a serious and fundamental violation, noted the HC ordering eviction which the Centre made effective on March 20.
The May 24 notice to Gymkhana to vacate the premises within 12 days by June 5 made a familiar case of urgent public purpose and national interest.
Enquiries as to why the Centre is reclaiming spaces long held by the institutions in question reveal something interesting. Official sources say all lease agreements the Ministry of Urban Affairs’ Land and Development Office executes with private entities incorporates a strategic clause. This provision says that the land parcel in question can be resumed and reentered (meaning retaken) by the lessor (the Ministry) as and when required for urgent public and national security purposes. In both the recent cases – Delhi Gymkhana and Delhi Race Club – the Ministry invoked this clause.
A recent legal precedent in a similar matter favoured the government of the day. After a protracted tussle with the Tamil Nadu government the Madras Race Club (MRC) lost the right to a 160 acre prime land in Chennai. The state government had revoked MRC’s 99-year lease citing violations of lease agreement and multi crores in unpaid rent – a move the Club challenged in the Madras High Court which allowed the state to proceed with public infrastructure and development projects on the land, stating that the property was government land. The Supreme Court later refused to interfere with the HC judgment.
But that won’t deter the Gymkhana management from moving court – its last resort should the Ministry disregard the Club’s petition to let the operations continue without dislocation in the interest of members and employees.
They will also draw heart from the Delhi High Court clarification in the Delhi Race Club case, where the judge said that even if the lease term of the institution (DRC’s lease ended in 1994) has expired, the government must follow regular legal eviction channels when dealing with institutions in settled possession.
Legal experts add that when these matters are eventually adjudicated, the real outcome to watch out for would be – what the courts say about the question of “urgent public purpose and interest" vis-a-vis historicity of the space and settled possession of government land.
The experts further frame the showdown between governments and elite institutions as an old rivalry with enough precedents.
In Bihar, then CM Lalu Yadav had tried to take over the Patna Golf Club but withdrew after severe backlash.
That said, with top Delhi institutions in the line of government fire, the sword of eviction is also hanging on media spaces including the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and the Indian Women’s Press Corps which have already received government notices in the past.
The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry had in May of 2022 issued a letter to IWPC to vacate the Windsor Place bungalow by July 31 citing the expiry of lease term. A similar notice went to the FCC.
Though no coercive action followed, the notices are alive and can be renewed any time, official sources say.
While institutions look to courts for protection, government sources in the know of things say most of the aforesaid spaces are located in highly sensitive and strategic areas of the national capital and government has the power to reclaim these on grounds of the public purposes and security clause in lease agreements signed by the Land and Development Office. Looks like the courts will have to settle this very vexed issue.
