The Kerala High Court on Monday slammed the state Government for bulldozing norms and procedures to take over one of India’s oldest golf clubs in Thiruvananthapuram. The court termed the move anti-democratic, and asked the Government to return the club to its owners forthwith.

The court also asked the state Revenue Secretary who had issued the takeover order even as the HC was considering a petition against it, to appear before it next week. Justice Sirijagan, who heard the petitioners, observed that the official had shown disrespect to the court.

The Left Government had sealed and taken over the 125-year-old Trivandrum Golf Club on Tuesday morning, on the ground that the club owed it some Rs 56 crore in land rent arrears.

This, the Government held, meant that the club’s 25.38 acres that the Government leased it in 1962 could be seized. The club held up a 2006 Government ruling that said the land deal was a licence agreement and not a lease arrangement, and the club did not owe the Government land rent arrears.

While the HC asked the Government on Monday to explain the hurry to push through this premium club’s takeover, Government sources said the idea was to convert the club into a ‘culture complex’. Just before the court axed the move, state Sports Minister M Vijayakumar had stated that the Cabinet had decided to push for the takeover and had even formed a four-member ministerial sub-committee to take the idea forward.

This committee of ministers, Vijayakumar claimed, would look at how the club could be used for improving the game of golf in Kerala, and make the club which has about 500 members, mostly politicians and bureaucrats, into a ‘people’s club’. The minister had stressed that the club would be made to provide access to all who want to play Golf, and not limit the facilities to an exclusive class.

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