Delhi HC to hear Delhi Gymkhana Club eviction plea on September 29

The Delhi High Court will hear pleas against the Centre's move to evict Delhi Gymkhana Club from its Safdarjung Road premises. The case will test the lease termination, due process claims and the government's public-interest justification.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said it will hear on September 29 the pleas challenging the Centre's action to evict the Delhi Gymkhana Club from its 27.3-acre premises on Safdarjung Road.

The challenge is to the Land and Development Office's May 22 order, which terminated the colonial-era club's perpetual lease and asked it to hand back the land by June 5.

The petitions have been filed by club member Vijay Khurana and the Delhi Gymkhana Club Ltd Staff Welfare Association. They have also sought a pause on the June 29 show-cause notice issued by an L&DO estate officer to the club's management for eviction. The Centre has earlier said it will not take any coercive action for the time being.

Justice Subramonium Prasad was told on Wednesday by senior counsel for one of the plaintiffs that the case was ready for arguments on the question of interim relief. The Centre also filed its response on the main matter and argued that the suits should be dismissed.

It said members cannot stop the enforcement of rights arising from the now-terminated lease deed between the authorities and the club.

In its written statement, the government said, "Defendant No 1 (Centre) maintains its right to resume the Suit Property under Clause 4 (of the deed) while obtaining possession through the procedure required by law and in compliance with judicial directions."

It also said, "The plaintiff cannot claim a personal estate in the land, or a right to enforce the terms of an instrument to which he is not privy, merely by describing his membership privileges as a right to enjoy the Club premises."

The Centre, through standing counsel Ashish Dixit, said the premises are in a sensitive and strategic area and are needed for defence infrastructure, public security, institutional and governance infrastructure, and public-interest projects integrated with adjoining government land.

It said these purposes are not legally incompatible merely because the site has historically housed a private club. Rejecting allegations of malice, the government said the pending litigation over the club's corporate governance was "distinct" and had no bearing on the eviction proceedings.

In 2022, the National Company Law Tribunal allowed the appointment of 15 government-nominated directors on the club's general committee after the Ministry of Corporate Affairs alleged oppression and mismanagement.

The Centre also repeated that the relief sought is barred under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, which, it said, excludes the jurisdiction of a civil court in such matters. In an earlier reply to the stay applications, it had argued that the High Court has no legal power to stop the government from taking over the land after the lease was terminated and the estate officer issued a show-cause notice.

It also said that since the lease deed was a bilateral instrument between the Centre and the club, a member who was neither a party to it nor privy to it cannot independently restrain the authorities from exercising their contractual rights.

Khurana, whose suit is said to have the backing of more than 500 club members, has argued that the reasons of defence infrastructure and security cited by the Centre are "vague" and "generalised" and are a "sham". He has claimed the move is an "attempt to effect forced eviction" instead of following due process of law. In his interim application, he said the June 29 notice proceeds on "entirely erroneous and premature assumptions" that strike at the substratum of the pending suit.

The plea said the show-cause notice was "premature" because it wrongly presumed that the perpetual lease had been validly terminated, and that allowing it to continue would render the suit infructuous, especially when the High Court had earlier said the question of valid termination would be decided at an appropriate stage.

Besides a pause, the application has sought status quo on possession, occupation and functioning of the club, or alternatively a direction that the estate officer should not pass any final order under the Public Premises Act or take any coercive or dispossessory step.