In High Court Bar Association, Allahabad v. State of U.P. & Ors., 2024 INSC 150, a Constitution Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court while overruling its own three-judge bench decision, unanimously held that automatic vacation of stay orders after a lapse of six months is against the basic tenets of justice, provides undue benefit to the respondents therein and that such orders can be vacated only after application of judicial mind by the concerned Court. The bench also observed that Article 142 which grants them extraordinary powers to do complete justice cannot be used to nullify the benefits derived from stay orders, ignore the substantive right of the parties to be heard before the passage of an adverse order and that such blanket direction of automatic vacation of stay amounts to making a dent to the jurisdiction of Hon’ble High Courts which consequentially amounts to making a dent to basic structure as well. Hon’ble Justice Pankaj Mithal in his separate concurring decision went on to opine that “sometimes, in the quest for justice we end up doing injustice” and the impugned three-judge bench decision in Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency Private Limited & Anr. v. Central Bureau of Investigation is an example of the same.
