The closure came as the Land and Development Office (L&DO) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs had already served notices asking for the land to be returned. The Air Force Sports Complex, home to a golf course inside the Air Force Station in the heart of New Delhi, was closed until further orders on October 28.
Besides the course, the complex has some other sporting facilities, a swimming pool, and eateries. The other plots were held for decades under leases; no allotment document for the complex’s land has been produced in court. It is governed by a council of serving Air Force officers, according to a 2024 Delhi High Court judgment.
The complex is the latest property near the Prime Minister’s residence on Lok Kalyan Marg (earlier called Race Course Road) set to be taken back this year.
Earlier reporting noted: The Air Force Golf Course, which houses a sports complex, a swimming pool and other amenities, was closed until further orders on Wednesday, leading to the cancellation of a planned farewell for outgoing Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal A P Singh, officials said. The Delhi Race Club’s track and the Jaipur Polo Ground have already been reclaimed, and the Delhi Gymkhana Club’s lease has been ended. Over the past several weeks, it has begun a review, through the L&DO, of prime land parcels near Lok Kalyan Marg. The closest the government came to explaining its purpose was in May, when the ministry ended the Gymkhana’s lease through the L&DO. The club laid out an oval track. Its stables, renovated in the 1940s, were built to shield the horses from Delhi’s heat. Flying came to the neighbourhood around the same time.
In 1926, the British colonial government leased land to the Delhi Race Club, according to the deed cited in a Delhi High Court order this year. An airfield nearby, first named Willingdon and now Safdarjung, saw its first commercial flight in 1927, and the Delhi Flying Club was set up there the following year, according to records of the UK’s Airborne Assault Museum. As for whose land it stood on, the Defence Estates Officer for Delhi told the Central Information Commission in a 2014 submission that the Air Force occupied 126.948 acres of Urban Development Ministry land in the Race Course area. Of 100 acres allotted to the Defence Ministry for the area, only 52.80 acres had been formally transferred. The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) is now part of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, whose wing, the L&DO, is reclaiming the land of the complex, around 30 acres.
The government has not said expressly what it plans to do with the land. The L&DO called the area a “highly sensitive and strategic area” and said the land was needed for “urgent institutional needs, governance infrastructure and public-interest projects” integrated with adjoining government land. The sports complex, the officer said, was “apparently” located on “MoUD land under the occupation of Air Force Station”. Earlier reporting noted: An official present at the premises on Lok Kalyan Marg said that notices had been served and the complex would remain closed until further notice.
Earlier reporting noted: The development comes days after the Land and Development Office (L&DO) under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) issued notices to the facility to return the land on Lok Kalyan Marg.
