File picture of the Congress Party's headquarters at 24, Akbar Road in New Delhi. (Picture: Associated Press)
The Centre has in a notice reminded the Congress that it was to have vacated its headquarters at 24 Akbar Road in the heart of the capital in June 2013.
The allotment, says the Director of Estates, stands cancelled as of June 26, 2013, and the Congress is liable to pay "damage rate of licence fee" from that day onwards.
In its reply, the party has sought that it be allowed to keep the premises for another three years.
"Yes we have received a notice and have replied to it," senior Congress leader Motilal Vora said today.
The notice says that after the Congress took possession of land at 9-A Rouse Avenue on June 25, 2010, it was allowed to keep the "general pool bungalow" in Akbar Road and three others, for an additional three years.
India's oldest political party has been operating out of the Akbar Road headquarters since 1978. The sprawling bungalow is right next to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence.
The two-acre Rouse Avenue land, which is not far from the party's present office, was allotted by the Congress-led UPA government in 2007 and Mrs Gandhi had laid the foundation for the new building. It was to have been constructed by 2013.