The direction came from a Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant after senior advocate Vikas Singh submitted on behalf of the club members that the Delhi High Court refused to entertain their plea on the grounds that only the club could have challenged the Centre’s decision.
Singh said the High Court asked the members to get a clarification from the top court that they could also file a petition.
The top court permitted them to move the High Court subject to objections, which may be raised by the other side regarding the maintainability and other legal issues.
On September 15, the Supreme Court had granted liberty to the 11 Delhi Gymkhana Club members—who have challenged the Centre’s decision to take over the club’s 27.3-acre premises on the Safdarjung road here and the subsequent eviction proceedings—to approach the Delhi High Court.
On behalf of the aggrieved members, Singh had told a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant that a Central Government-nominated committee was presently managing the club which cannot fight a legal battle with the government.
“Here, the lessor and the lessee are both under the control of the government,” Singh said, adding the government-nominated management had overstayed the NCLAT-mandated timeline for elections and restoration of elected control. It was a mala fide attempt to take over the club, Singh had submitted.
The Bench, however, had disposed of the plea filed by Vipin Aggarwal and 10 other aggrieved club members with the liberty to either file a fresh plea in the Delhi High Court or make themselves a party in the ongoing eviction proceedings. The high court will examine the fresh plea on merits, it said.
On September 3, the Centre had told the Delhi High Court that it would not take any coercive action till September 16 against the club in relation to its eviction from the property.
The High Court was hearing petitions by club member Vijay Khurana and others seeking a stay on the June 29 show-cause notice for eviction issued to the club’s management by an estate officer of the Land and Development Office (L&DO).
Alleging that the government’s actions constituted a “colourable exercise” of power and violated their fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 19, besides depriving them of property contrary to Article 300A of the Constitution, Aggarwal and others have sought quashing of the resumption notification issued by the L&DO on May 22 and the show-cause notice issued by the estate officer on June 29.
“The impugned actions are not the isolated acts of a landlord but the culmination of a sustained and conscious design by Respondent No. 1 (Centre) to take over the respondent Gymkhana, a design pursued over a quarter of a century and now sought to be completed while the Gymkhana is under a government-nominated management installed by Respondent No. 1 itself, whose very validity is pending before this court in a civil appeal,” they submitted.
