SC junks plea against HC stay on decision to enforce CM's promise on rent relief

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea challenging a Delhi High Court decision to stay an order directing the AAP government to decide and formulate a policy on the implementation of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's announcement that if a poor tenant was unable to pay rent during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state would pay it.

A bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant, which perused the speech of Kejriwal said, promissory estoppel will not lie on the basis of speech. There has to be some policy, a notification has to be issued in this regard .

In contract law, promissory estoppel refers to the doctrine that a party may recover based on a promise made as it had relied on the said promise.

The bench said that it is an interlocutory order passed by the Delhi High Court and therefore it is not interfering with it.

Since the Special Leave Petition is directed against an interlocutory order which has been passed by the division bench of the High Court in an appeal against the judgment of the Single Judge, no case for interference under Article 136 of the Constitution has been made out. The Special Leave Petition is dismissed on that ground , it ordered.

On September 27, last year the Delhi High Court had stayed an order of single-judge bench directing the AAP government to formulate a policy on the implementation of the Chief Minister's announcement that if a poor tenant was unable to pay rent during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state would pay it.