There cannot be automatic vacation of stay

The Supreme Court's Constitution bench overturned a 2018 decision by the apex court that had imposed a six-month limit on the duration of interim stay orders granted by courts in criminal and civil proceedings [High Court Bar Association Allahabad vs State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors]. The bench comprised of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices Abhay S. Oka, JB Pardiwala, Pankaj Mithal, and Manoj Misra, which held that contrary to the ruling in Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency v. Central Bureau of Investigation (2018), stay orders cannot automatically be vacated after six months. Consequently, the Court annulled the directives from the 2018 ruling in the Asian Resurfacing case, wherein a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court had stipulated that any stay orders in criminal and civil cases would only be effective for a period of six months unless expressly prolonged.

The Supreme Court too had expressed reservations about the Asian Resurfacing judgment, although it had acknowledged the drawbacks of prolonging stay orders. The court thought that “without application of mind, an order of interim stay cannot be vacated only on the ground of lapse of time when the litigant is not responsible for the delay. An interim order lawfully passed by a Court after hearing all contesting parties is not rendered illegal only due to the long passage of time ... If such an approach is adopted, it will be completely contrary to the concept of fairness”.