The Delhi High Court ruled that courts cannot enforce a Chief Minister’s press conference promises, overturning a verdict against Arvind Kejriwal that had directed the government to honour his COVID-era rent payment assurance for tenants.
The Delhi High Court set-aside a single-judge ruling that had treated a Chief Minister’s remarks at a press conference as an enforceable promise that the government must implement.
Earlier, a single-judge bench had directed the Delhi government, then led by Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal, to formulate a policy giving effect to an assurance made by the CM.
That direction has now been modified by a Division Bench of Justices C. Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla.
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The Court held,
“No mandamus could be issued to enforce the statement made by the then Chief Minister in the press conference,”
The case arose from a March 29, 2020 press conference in which the then-CM appealed to landlords to postpone rent collection from tenants who were poor and poverty-stricken.
It was also alleged that the CM expressly promised that if a tenant could not pay rent due to poverty, the government would pay the rent on their behalf. A group of petitioners, including daily-wage workers who said they could not pay rent after the COVID-19 economic slowdown, sought court enforcement of that assurance.
In July 2021, Justice Prathibha M. Singh had held that an assurance made by the Chief Minister at a press conference was enforceable, and ordered the Delhi government to take steps to frame a policy to implement the CM’s assurance or to give reasons if it declined to do so. The Delhi government appealed.
The Division Bench has now held that statements made at a press conference cannot be enforced by court direction and described such petitions as misconceived.
It said today,
“The prayer and the writ petition for a direction to the state to implement the assurance contained in the press conference dated 29th, March 2020 of the chief minister is misconceived, and this accordingly rejected,”
The Bench observed that such comments are often made spur-of-the-moment and that the court lacks information about the financial and other consequences of enforcing them.
The court added,
“We are unaware of the financial, logistical, and other implications of enforcement of the decision that the State would wear the rank of the migrants, which, prima facie, appears to have been taken on the spur of the moment, as it does not even find reflection in the DDMA order 1228. We, therefore, are not expressing any view one way or the other, thereon,”
The bench also noted that a 2020 District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) order barred landlords from recovering rent from migrant tenants who were unable to leave rented premises during the COVID-19 lockdown, but that protection applied only for the lockdown period.
The court concluded while dismissing the State’s appeal,
“This would not, however, inhibit the State government from taking a policy decision regarding the assurance given by the former chief minister, regarding the State paying the rent of the migrants, should it so deem appropriate,”