NEW DELHI: Members of the Delhi Gymkhana Club on Monday moved the Delhi High Court against the Centre's order asking the club to hand over its premises to the government by June 5.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi mentioned the matter before Justice Avneesh Jhingan for an urgent hearing.
The court listed the lawsuit for hearing on Tuesday.
The Centre has asked the Gymkhana Club in Lutyens' Delhi to hand over its premises by June 5, citing that the 27.3-acre land parcel was required for “strengthening and securing defence infrastructure”.
The order, issued by the Land & Development Office (L&DO) under the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, stated that the premises, located in a highly sensitive and strategic area of Delhi, are critically required for the strengthening and securing of defence infrastructure and for other vital public security purposes.
Another lawsuit by the Delhi Gymkhana Club Ltd Staff Welfare Association against the Centre’s order is also scheduled to be taken up by Justice Avneesh Jhingan on Tuesday.
It says that the cooks, waiters, kitchen and housekeeping staff, gardeners and groundsmen, electricians and plumbers, lifeguards, security personnel, etc., employed at the club seeks protection of their source of livelihood as well as fundamental rights under Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution.
Seeking to quash the Centre's May 22 order, the plea says the club was not a place of leisure for them but their place of work.
Vijay Khurana, a 79-year-old Gymkhana Club member who filed the first lawsuit, said that the "vague and generalised reasons" of defence infrastructure and security given by the Centre were just a "sham" and the move was an "attempt to effect forced eviction" instead of following the due process of law.
The takeover is through a "premeditated and coordinated design" and not for any "genuine or emergent public requirement", the plea claimed.
Khurana said more than 500 members of the Delhi Gymkhana Club supported the lawsuit.
It seeks to restrain the Central government from "illegally determining" the Gymkhana Club's perpetual leasehold rights and to prevent any forced dispossession from the historic premises situated on 2, Safdarjung Road, adjacent to the prime minister’s residence on Lok Kalyan Marg.
The lawsuit said urgent interim protection was necessary in this case, claiming that the Centre has “threatened” to take possession of the plot of land on June 5 through “coercive measures” and police assistance, which will result in an “irreversible” and “irreparable” situation.
In the lawsuit, Khurana emphasised that the Delhi Gymkhana Club and its members have invested substantial resources towards the development, maintenance and modernisation of the club, and the Centre was seeking to dismantle its institutional existence and irretrievably extinguish the "valuable associational, participatory and membership rights accrued over decades".
He also claimed that the Centre's notice, dated May 22, is malicious and neither provides for any compensation nor does it establish a "bona fide public purpose" in terms of the perpetual lease deed to unilaterally extinguish "century-old" rights.
The lawsuit argued that the Centre's decision is in flagrant violation of Article 300A of the Constitution, as records showed that the Delhi Gymkhana Club has proprietary rights over the land, which cannot be taken away arbitrarily without an acquisition process and payment of compensation.
Article 300A states that no person can be deprived of his property except by the authority of law.
"The uninterrupted recognition of Defendant No. 2’s (Delhi Gymkhana Club) perpetual leasehold rights for nearly a century, coupled with continued acceptance of rent and performance of contractual obligations, created a legitimate expectation of continuity and non-arbitrary treatment," the lawsuit, filed through lawyer Naman Joshi, said.
"Having already exercised deep and pervasive control over the governance and functioning of Defendant No. 2 through government-appointed nominees, Defendant No. 1 (Centre) has now sought, through the impugned notice, to assume complete control and possession of the suit property itself.
“The sequence, timing and nature of the impugned action demonstrate a premeditated and coordinated design rather than any genuine or emergent public requirement," it added.
In 2022, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) permitted the appointment of 15 government-nominated directors on the club's general committee after the Ministry of Corporate Affairs filed a plea alleging oppression and mismanagement in its affairs.
The Delhi Gymkhana Club stands on one of the city's most valuable and strategically important land parcels, within the high-security administrative zone that houses several key Central government and defence establishments.
Originally founded on July 3, 1913, as the Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club, the institution was established to serve colonial administrators and military officers.
The word ‘Imperial’ was dropped after India gained Independence in 1947, while the existing structures were constructed in the 1930s.