Delhi golf club case: Panel says Meghalaya woman’s outfit was not the reason she was asked to leave

The three-member panel that was set up to look into a controversy at the Delhi Golf Club has said that the woman from Meghalaya was asked to leave on June 25 because she was accompanying a child, who was wearing a round-neck t-shirt, The Hindu reported on Monday. The Justice Mukul Mudgal Inquiry Committee released its report based on the statements of nine people who were present at the time of the incident.

On June 25, Tailin Lyngdoh was allegedly asked to leave the Delhi Golf Club for wearing “a maid’s uniform”. She had gone to the club with her employer Nivedita Barthakur Sondhi and her son. A club member had invited Nivedita Barthakur, an entrepreneur and advisor to the Assam government, for lunch. They were stopped at the reception and told that the boy could not dine in the club’s dining hall as he was “wearing a t-shirt without a collar”, the report said.

The panel’s report said the Sondhis and Lyngdoh were subsequently allowed to dine after the club’s officials recorded a “transgression of dress code” in their register. The document accused Nivedita Sondhi of inappropriate behaviour after another staffer told her that domestic staff were not allowed to dine inside the hall.

“Dr Nivedita Barthakur Sondhi threw her napkin, kicked her chair and proceeded to walk out of the Dining Hall to the lobby while speaking in a loud voice all the way in the presence of members and guests as witnessed by many guests,” the report said. The committee also questioned Sondhi and her host’s decision to not register a formal complaint with the club or police.

The Delhi Golf Club, however, had apologised to Tailin Lyngdoh (pictured above) on August 4 on the recommendations of the committee. In a letter, DGC President Siddharth Shriram said: “We sincerely regret any inadvertent and unintended embarrassment that may have been caused to you by the employees of the club.”

Shriram said the traditional jainsem – a dress indigenous to Khasi women in Meghalaya – she was wearing was “certainly no concern” to the club as many members “do wear that unique dress”. He added and that they had never denied access to anyone clad in a jainsem.

‘Dressed in a maid’s uniform’

Lyngoh had claime that two club officials had allegedly told her to vacate the place as she looked like a “dustbin” and that had been racially abused further.

Correction: A previous version of the story erroneously said that the woman was asked to leave for wearing a round-neck t-shirt.