New twist to Bangalore racecourse shifting controversy

Bangalore racecourse [Photo by Ravi]

© The Hindu

Club has right over land as long as it is used for racing

By Krishnaprasad

Bangalore: The State Government’s attempt to stop the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) from conducting horse racing at the present location has received a jolt with club members unearthing archival documents which state that the “club has the right over the land as long as it is used for racing activities”.

The archival documents, retrieved from State Archives and analysed by Arvind Raghavan, an advocate who is Secretary of Karnataka Racehorse Owners’ Association, belong to the years between 1860 and 1923.

The documents, in the possession of the BTC, include a registered agreement executed on January 1, 1916, between the Government of Maharaja of Mysore and two stewards Lt. Col. R.D.L. Faunce and Sir Leslie Miller, terms of the agreement signed during 1915-16, various correspondences and orders issued during the time of Maharaja of Mysore.

Based on the legal analysis submitted by a group of its members, the BTC has now found out that the land on which the race course is located was allotted to the then Race Club Committee in 1863 in exchange for the land at Agaram, where the race course was originally located, which was acquired for military purposes.

The records show that as there was no proper documents of the title to the land in the possession of the Race Club Committee then, the Government of the Maharaja of Mysore decided to pass orders defining the tenure of the lease.

It was then made clear in the agreement that the “land will be in the possession of the Race Club Committee so long as it is utilised as a race course and on no account it should be alienated.”

The agreements were permanent in nature and not a lease agreement for a stipulated number of years.

Further, the land would revert to the Government only in the event of the club ceasing to maintain it as a race course, the club committee has said.

The documents state that when the Race Club Committee changed its name to Bangalore Race Club in 1921, the new committee which comprised a British resident, Lt. Col. C. Gaunt and others, registered a fresh agreement with the Government of Maharaja of Mysore on September 9, 1923 based on the same terms and conditions contained in the original agreement of 1916.

The club members pointed out that as these agreements (of 1916 and 1923) do not refer to any lease or lease rent or licence fee, both the Bangalore Turf Club and the State Government made the mistake of entering into lease deeds in 1983 and 2008 under the wrong assumption that earlier agreements were only lease rights.

These documents will be the basis on which a legal battle may ensue against any attempt by the State Government to evict the BTC by the end of December.

However, despite claiming rights to conduct racing activities permanently based on the archival documents and agreements, a section of club members are in favour of shifting the race course outside the city once the Government allots it alternative land.

But this section is particular that the Government should give at least two years to build the infrastructure for the new race course before the relocating.

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(Sent in by a reader, Easwaran, for the attention of the readers of this blog.)