Supreme Court Overturns 2018 Ruling; Stay Orders Cannot Be Limited To Six Months

A Constitution bench led by the Chief Justice of India set aside the 2018 ruling of the Supreme Court which limited the life of interim stay orders granted by criminal and civil courts to six months.

There will be no automated vacation of stay orders after six months as laid down in its 2018 judgment, a bench consisting of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justices AS Oka, JB Pardiwala, Pankaj Mithal and Manoj Misra said, reports Bar and Bench.

The court hence kept aside the directions issued in the 2018 judgment in the Asian Resurfacing case in which the three-judge bench of the top court directed that all stay orders in criminal as well as civil proceedings would only be valid for six months unless specifically extended.

“In cases where stay is granted in future, the same will end on expiry of six months from the date of such order unless similar extension is granted by a speaking order,” the 2018 judgment held.But the speaking order will be given if the cases are of such an “exceptional nature” that continuing stay is more important than having the trial finalized. This judgment has been now overruled and the five-judge bench has noted that Constitutional courts cannot fix the timeline for disposal of cases by other courts and the issue of out-of-turn priority be also left to the courts concerned.

The court in its judgement further added that the directions to the district court for deciding a case within an outer time limit ought to be passed in extraordinary circumstances. On December 1, the top court agreed to reconsider the ruling passed in 2018 on a plea submitted by the lawyer’s body.

This appeal was directed against the Allahabad High Court decision in November to dismiss the application extending the stay citing the 2018 ruling by the Supreme Court.

The court after agreeing to reconsider the case raised important questions of law. The court asked whether such an order amounts to “judicial legislation” as no timeline could be set for deciding any case.

Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi during the argument on December 13 said that the 2018 order has affected the jurisdiction of high courts. While, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Centre pointed out that the 2018 judgment curtailed the judicial discretion of high courts, reports Hindustan Times.