KARACHI, July 19: A civil court ordered restoration of Sadaruddin Gangji as a member of the Karachi Golf Club on Saturday.

Mr Gangji was a regular member of the club till September 1996 when he went abroad for six months and the person he asked to pay his monthly membership dues failed to make the payments.

The club, which is registered as a limited company, terminated his membership. On his return to Karachi, he cleared all the outstanding dues together with the reinstatement charges through a cheque, which was accepted by the club.

However, the club’s managing committee found his explanation for default unsatisfactory and declined to restore his membership as he had also defaulted once before in 1991. Mr Gangji instituted a suit for declaration and injunction through Advocates Dara S. Shaikh and M. Arif Khan.

Senior civil judge Aaliya Qazi, who heard the case, held that under the club’s own rules, all that a member was required to do for reinstatement was to furnish a satisfactory explanation and pay all the outstanding dues with the reinstatement charges. There was no provision in the club’s rules to empower its managing committee to reject a member’s reinstatement plea on the sole ground of his being a defaulter for the second time. The managing committee did have the knowledge that the plaintiff was out of the country. The club had acted in contravention of its own rules by refusing to restore the plaintiff’s membership. Decreeing the suit, the judge ruled that the plaintiff was entitled to have his membership restored.