The Union government has told the Supreme Court that implementation of the 30-year-old Delhi Rent Act (DRA) of 1995 cannot be done by a judicial order as the date for notifying the law is a policy decision that must await the socio-economic and administrative environment to be “conducive”.Supreme Court asked not to interfere as Centre says Delhi Rent Act awaits ‘conducive’ conditions. (ANI)The response of the Centre came over a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a lawyer Shobha Aggarwal who questioned the dormant law lying in limbo for over three decades without any response forthcoming from the Centre for notifying it. In January, the top court had sought the Centre’s response and given it further time in March pursuant to which an affidavit was filed last week.The Union ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) in its response said, “The decision to notify the Delhi Rent Act, 1995 involves balancing the challenging interests of various stakeholders and consideration of various steps and factors, all which is in the realm of policymaking of the Government.”Asking the courts not to step into this domain by entertaining the petition, the affidavit said, “The courts have to exercise judicial restraint in passing any such directions to the Government as sought in the captioned writ petition, as this may cause serious damage to the principle of separation of powers recognised as a part of the basic structure of the Constitution of India.”Centre says no fundamental right violatedThe response further said that the non-notification of the 1995 Act does not violate any fundamental rights.“There is no vested right in a citizen to demand that a particular legislative policy be brought into force on a specific date,” it said, adding that in the absence of the new law, the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (old Act) continues to operate and provide a legal framework for landlord-tenant relationships in Delhi, thus providing citizens a statutory remedy.The MoHUA, in its response, cited section 1(3) of the 1995 Act by which the Parliament clearly entrusts the government with the power to notify the law. The section states, “It (the Act) shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint.”Referring to this open-ended delegation of power bereft of any specified date, the Centre said, “Under Section 1(3) of the DRA, 1995, Parliament has expressly delegated the power of commencement to the Central Government to ensure that the Act is notified only when the socio-economic and administrative environment is conducive.”In such circumstances, the courts cannot issue a mandamus (directive) to the government to bring a statute into force when the legislature has left the date of commencement to the government’s discretion, the response said.“It is for the executive to decide the date on which the said Act has to be brought into force,” the response stated that the statute is not in “dormancy” due to executive neglect but is undergoing active legislative evolution.Government questions maintainability of PILThe government also questioned the petitioner for approaching the SC without first availing her remedy before the high court. However, it stated, that if the legislation is not being notified, the remedy will lie before the Parliament and not courts.“The appropriate accountability rests in front of the Parliament. The judiciary ought not to substitute its own judgment for that of the executive regarding the ‘readiness’ of the administrative machinery to enforce the law,” it said.The 1995 Act got the Presidential assent on August 23, 1995 and Aggarwal, the lawyer, claimed that the law should be deemed to have come into operation due to the executive’s inability to notify it.The petition filed last year questioned how a legislation passed by Parliament could be kept in abeyance for over 30 years, defeating the legislative will behind passing such a law to balance the rights of landlords and tenants and eroding the rule of law.“Expeditious implementation of Acts passed by the Parliament is a constitutional obligation of the government and a fundamental right of the citizens under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India,” the petition said. The Articles pertain to right to equality and protection of life and personal liberty, respectively.Agarwal pointed out that the non-enforcement of the 1995 Act goes against government’s own policy as the Union government has been coming out with Model Rent Acts from time to time.“In Delhi, the anachronistic Delhi Rent Act, 1958 continues to be in force because of the executive’s failure to implement the Delhi Rent Act, 1995,” Agarwal said, adding that several states have enacted the reformed tenancy laws after the 2021 Model Tenancy Act was approved by the Union Cabinet.The petition urged the court to direct immediate commencement of the Act and implement the provisions of the Act with retrospective effect.The petitioner also sought guidelines to be laid down to ensure future legislations do not suffer similar fate on account of “legislative paralysis”.Following the passage of the 1995 Act, the Delhi Rent (Amendment) Bill, 1997 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha which was referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee that suggested changes. However, the modified Bill was never tabled in the upper House.Later, in 2004, a committee of the Rajya Sabha recommended the passage of the Delhi Rent Act (Amendment) Bill, 1997.The committee noted in its report that a healthy precedent has not been set by deferring enforcement of the 1995 Act. Around the same time, a petition was moved in the SC by NGO Common Cause to give effect to the 1995 law but the court declined to entertain the same.The 1995 Act aimed to balance the rights of landlords and tenants, establish updated tribunals, and regulate rent more realistically than the archaic Delhi Rent Control Act of 1958.The 1958 Act was enacted after the partition to protect vulnerable refugees from exorbitant rent hikes and arbitrary evictions. However, with the rents remaining capped to 1950s old levels, it also made it nearly impossible for landlords to legally evict tenants. This has led to several disputes between landlords and tenants pending in civil courts for decades. Tenants argue that they had a legal agreement on rents with the landlords.(With inputs from Paras Singh)