The high court was moved by a businessman from Mahisagar district, Ramanlal Patel, who submitted that he had invested in setting up a solar power project following the Gujarat Industrial Policy, 2020.
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court has issued notice to concerned state authorities in response to a petition challenging the government’s decision to withdraw the benefits of subsidy in solar energy policy for micro, small and medium enterprises on the ground that the stoppage of the policy is in violation of the principle of promissory estoppel.
The high court was moved by a businessman from Mahisagar district, Ramanlal Patel, who submitted that he had invested in setting up a solar power project following the Gujarat Industrial Policy, 2020. He was attracted to invest in purchase of land, equipment and services to establish the solar project because of the subsidy policy for Development of Small Scale Distributed Solar Project, 2019. His unit was classified as micro enterprise.
However, the government took a decision to withdraw the subsidy policy on July 20 and later communications were issued to concerned authorities in August. The petitioner has termed the decision to withdraw subsidy benefits for the MSMEs as illegal and invalid. He has argued that such a decision is against the principle of promissory estoppel. “Had there been no subsidy offered to xindustries, he would never have invested so much in this business,” he said.
After preliminary hearing, Justice Sangeeta Vishen on Tuesday issued notice to the concerned authorities and sought their replies by September 28, when further hearing has been posted.
Source: TNN
