Important Legal Definitions

An equitable doctrine holding that where a government authority or private party makes a clear and unequivocal promise intended to create legal relations, and the promisee acts upon it to their detriment, the promisor cannot resile from that promise.

In Motilal Padampat Sugar Mills v. State of U.P., the Supreme Court held that the State of Uttar Pradesh could not backtrack on a public commitment granting a three-year sales tax holiday to new vanaspati manufacturing units after the petitioner had set up the factory relying on the assurance.