A Punjab Assembly special committee has summoned the entire Committee of Management of the Lahore Gymkhana Club, including senior figures Kamran Lashari and Salman Siddique, to appear in person on Oct 21, 2026, over questions of land use, lease compliance, and public money.
According to Dawn, Special Committee No 6, convened by MPA Sami Ullah Khan, is intensifying its probe into the club's occupation of government land in the heart of Lahore. Notices issued by Assembly Secretary General Chaudhry Amer Habib set hearings for Oct 20 and 21, covering Adjournment Motion No 195/2024, Resolution No 288 moved by Amjad Ali Javed, and Privilege Motion 55/2025 by Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain Chhachhar.
What the committee wants to know
The panel has demanded exhaustive records from the highest tiers of the provincial administration: the Senior Member of the Board of Revenue, the Deputy Commissioner of Lahore, the Law Secretary, the Agriculture Secretary, the DG of the Parks and Horticulture Authority, and the Director General Audit (Punjab). All must submit comprehensive written responses with supporting documents.
The Board of Revenue and the Law Department must explain the legal basis for a 50-year lease renewed in 1996, four years early, at a nominal Rs5,000 annually. The club holds about 1,090 kanals, roughly 112 acres, on The Mall. That works out to about Rs44 per acre per year.
The Board of Revenue values comparable land at Rs70 million to Rs200 million per kanal, which places the value of the entire holding between Rs76 billion and Rs218 billion.
Land meant for the people, held by the few
The 1996 lease deed binds the club to provide facilities in the public sector. Yet membership is reserved for civil servants of grade 18 and above and armed forces officers, at a minimal entrance fee. The management has told the committee the premises have never been commercial, but the panel now asks whether they truly serve public access and interests.
The Lahore DC has been ordered to produce a certified reconciliation of revenue records against actual possession, targeting measurement discrepancies around Khasra 2108 and a reported excess of 3 kanals and 16 marlas involving Khasras 2100 and 2107. The Board of Revenue says it has no record of government approval for any of the club's buildings, which went up between 1972 and 2012.
The Director General Audit must present findings on four special government grants totalling Rs64 million received by the club, along with unverified expenditures and rental concession values.
A trust betrayed, a duty to reclaim
Here is the heart of the matter. The land of the Islamic Republic is an amanah, a sacred trust held for the people, not a private garden for the privileged. When 112 acres of state land in the heart of Lahore hold a golf course and a members-only club, while public institutions are pushed to the city's fringe, the covenant between the state and its citizens stands broken.
The Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute, the province's flagship public transplant hospital, was built at Barki on Lahore's outskirts for want of land. The sick travel miles for treatment while fairways sprawl in the city's centre. This is not justice; this is not the Pakistan our forebears bled for.
The management committee, which includes Dr Ali Razzaque, Mian Misbah ur Rehman, Wajid Aziz Khan, Sardar Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera, Sarmad Nadeem, Dr Jawad Sajid Khan, Tasneem Noorani, Mian Parvez Bhandara, M Zia-ur-Rehman, and Samaira Nazir, has been instructed to bring authenticated copies of lease deeds, registration documents, audited accounts for the last five financial years, fee schedules, and membership criteria.
The Bagh-e-Jinnah question
The club also holds six acres of Bagh-e-Jinnah for a cricket ground at Rs900 a year, on a lease running until 2069. Resolution No 288, moved by Amjad Ali Javed and Rao Kashif Rahim Khan, asks the government to open that ground to public sport and to recover past dues. The resolution also cites the city's smog and calls for 100 acres to be converted into a public park and urban forest, leaving 17 acres to the club.
In a city gasping under smog each winter, the moral case for trees and open ground over private greens could not be plainer. The people of Lahore deserve air, shade, and space for their children, not locked gates and membership lists.
What happened in Delhi, and what it means for Lahore
There is a precedent, and an instructive one. This summer, New Delhi ordered the Delhi Gymkhana Club, founded in 1913, the same year as Lahore's, to vacate its land by June 5. The order invoked a single public purpose clause in the lease, and the land and buildings returned to the state.
We take no pleasure in anything Delhi does, but the principle is sound and the lesson is ours to apply. Lahore's lease carries the same power. The Law Department has confirmed to the committee that the government may end the lease on six months' notice, with no compensation for the buildings. No notice has been issued.
Pakistan does not need to copy India; Pakistan needs only to honour its own laws and its own people. The clause sits in the deed. The will to use it is a question of leadership.
What happens next
The committee is expected to weigh departmental observations and formulate definitive findings and recommendations in the public interest following the Oct 20 and 21 hearings. The bureaucrats and the club leadership must appear, produce their papers, and answer for half a century of arrangements made quietly, at prices that insult the public treasury.
The people of Lahore are watching. So is history. State land is not the inheritance of any club or class; it belongs to the nation, to every citizen who walks The Mall and breathes this city's air. The Assembly has opened the door. Let it not close again until the land returns to those in whose name it was held all along.
Frequently asked questions
Why was the Gymkhana Club management summoned?
The Punjab Assembly Special Committee No 6 summoned the management to answer questions on land use, lease compliance, building approvals, and Rs64 million in government grants, with hearings set for Oct 20 and 21, 2026.
How much land does the Lahore Gymkhana hold?
Documents before the committee show the club holds about 1,090 kanals, roughly 112 acres, on The Mall, plus six acres of Bagh-e-Jinnah for a cricket ground at Rs900 a year.
What does the lease cost the club?
The 1996 renewal set the rent at Rs5,000 a year for 50 years, about Rs44 per acre, while the Board of Revenue values comparable land at Rs70 million to Rs200 million per kanal.
Can the government cancel the lease?
Yes. The Law Department has confirmed the government may end the lease on six months' notice with no compensation for the buildings. No notice has been issued so far.