How Delhi Golf Club skirted rules to sneak the elite into its fold

Almost a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancelled 20 memberships at the Delhi Golf Club, an RTI note now reveals who all managed a backdoor entry to Delhi’s biggest networking ground. “(These) individuals are nominated for out of turn basis by the minister as per clause 21(iii) of Supplementary Lease Deed between Land Development office and Delhi Golf Club,” said a note from the Urban Development Ministry in response to a RTI application. [caption id=“attachment_2849134” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of the Delhi Golf Club. Image credit: The DGC’s official website[/caption] All those in the list were sanctioned by the then Union Urban Housing Development minister Kamal Nath, who not only renewed the 220-acre club lease for a pittance of Rs 550,000 annual rent for 30 years in 2013, but sought and gained 29 permanent memberships of his nominees to the club, which had got its land from Jawaharlal Nehru in 1951. An official from Nath’s office said the former minister is not keen to comment. An email sent to his office went unanswered. Nath, now in news for his reluctance to accept the party’s offer to lead the party’s electoral challenge in the forthcoming Punjab elections, had repeatedly refused to share details of “out of turn” membership. Interestingly, the Aam Aadmi Party that wants the club to be open for public, has written to the current urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu, and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) about the Delhi Golf Club’s “favoured members”. Interestingly, the Delhi lieutenant governor, Najeeb Jung — a bitter foe of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal — is a member of the club. AAP has even encouraged members to take on the club’s high-profile members, who range from powerful bureaucrats and Central ministers to corporate honchos and lobbyists. The powerful club is full of strutting peacocks and patriots and nestled amidst 15th Century monuments. The legendary Marlon Brando, who had once visited the club, had called it “heavenly”. Members include the city’s most influential, powerful and wealthy. An application for membership has a 40-year waiting list, and that’s only if the candidate passes a stringent set of conditions. Compared to other clubs, the Delhi Golf Club membership comes cheap at Rs 800 per month (non-members pay Rs 2,400 for an 18-hole round). The ITC Classic Golf Club charges an annual fee of Rs 1.25 lakh while DLF Golf Club charges Rs 8.5 lakh for five years. The DGC currently has 3,000 members. The names Nath pushed as “out of turn” members are indeed interesting. The names are indeed interesting. It has Ashish Chanana of Ameera Rice who was embroiled in some major smuggling issues with the ED and DRI, noted meat exporter and hawala trader Moin Akhtar Qureshi, Deepak Puri, who once owned Moser Baer (now a defunct company) and his son Ratul Puri, now heading Hindustan Power Projects. There is Angad Kapur of Atlas Cycles, a Haryana company. Nath doled out the memberships to the current attorney general Mukul Rohtagi, the former additional solicitor general Amarjit Singh Chandhiok, DLF CEO Mohit Gujral, Mohammed Faisal Patel, son of powerful Congress leader Ahmed Patel, Amit Kumar Bansal, son of former Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, Haryana politician Deepender Singh Hooda, Trinamool Congress leader and former Railway minister Dinesh Trivedi. Among the glitterati, the list has some interesting names. There is fashion designer Ritu Beri, seasoned, globe trotting marketeer and author, Suhel Seth, another fashion designer Anand Ahuja, top heart doctor Naresh Trehan, Lord Krishna Bank head Mohan Puri and Neeraj Bharadwaj of Carlyle Group. Interestingly, a host of bureaucrats made it to the list, among them some working under Nath. There were Sudha Krishnan, a joint secretary, Khalid Bin Jamal, private secretary and other bureaucrats like Neeraj Kumar Gupta of Department of Public Enterprises and former PMO official Jawed Ashraf.

A senior official of the Delhi Golf Club said he was “not authorised to comment on special quota members because it is done from the top”. Interestingly, the club had — for almost a decade — stalled various efforts to seek information about members, especially those nominated by the minister. But the wall crumbled last year when the Central Information Commission ruled the upmarket club to be a “public authority’’ under the RTI Act, and thus answerable to members of the public. The ruling was delivered by Information Commissioner ML Sharma on 30 August, 2015 in response to an appeal filed by intrepid RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal, whose RTI application of September 2012 was turned down because the Delhi Golf Club (DGC) had responded by saying it was a registered company under the provisions of the Companies Act 1956, and not a public authority. The high-profile club last year shot into news after some members complained about glaring discrepancies in sanctioning membership, including three non-government functionaries inducted by former urban development minister Kamal Nath in the DGC General Committee, the highest decision-making body of the club. The three members nominated by the previous UPA government include Rajiv Luthra, Rajan Gupta and Duke Walia. The NDA government in January cancelled the membership of 27 serving and retired bureaucrats to the Delhi Golf Club. Members alleged that the presence of “non-bureaucrats” in the General Committee was not serving any purpose. The government wanted to remove two permanent members but the president declined, saying the existing rules do not permit their removal. And now, AAP wants to turn the DGC into a mass park, almost like New York’s 778-acre Central Park and London’s Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens complex that measure 625 acres and offer residents and visitors space for recreation. The last word has not been spoken on this peculiar battle for the greens.