Overview
- The Delhi High Court’s Division Bench, which ruled Monday, set aside a 2021 order and held that courts cannot force Delhi to honor the former chief minister’s March 2020 rent assurance.
- The judges said a writ of mandamus applies only when a legal duty exists, and the press remark was never turned into any order, memo, circular, or notification.
- The bench noted a Delhi Disaster Management Authority directive from March 2020 barred landlords from collecting rent from stranded migrants during the lockdown, but it created no right to state-paid rent.
- The case began with five daily-wage workers who could not pay rent, saw the single-judge ruling stayed in September 2021, and moved toward this final outcome after the Supreme Court in February 2022 declined to disturb that stay.
- The court said the government may still adopt a rent-relief policy, signaling that crisis-time assurances can guide politics yet do not create legal claims without formal backing and clear fiscal planning.