Unless extended, stay orders by lower courts expire in 6 months: SC

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 17

Stay orders passed by High Courts and subordinate courts expire in six months, unless extended for good reasons, the Supreme Court has ruled.

“Whatever stay has been granted by any court, including the High Court, automatically expires within a period of six months, and unless extension is granted for good reason, as per our judgment,” said a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Rohinton F Nariman.

“The trial court is, on the expiry of the first period of six months, to set a date for the trial and go ahead with the same,” it said.

In 2013, the Supreme Court had said that “in cases where the 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 latest order came in a case from Pune wherein an Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate had in December last year asked a complainant to approach the Bombay High Court for resumption of trial that had been stayed by the High Court. “We must remind the magistrates all over the country that in our pyramidical structure under the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court is at the apex, and the High Courts, though not subordinate administratively, are certainly subordinate judicially. This kind of orders fly in the face of…our judgment,” the top court said, adding the courts below across India must follow its order in “letter and spirit.”