New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday expressed reservations with its 2018 judgment on the 'Asian Resurfacing case'. The judgment had ordered that there would be automatic lifting of stay in all civil and criminal matters upon expiry of six months. A three-judge bench led by the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said, "There can be no gain saying the fact that a stay of an indefinite nature results in prolonging civil or criminal proceedings, as the case may be, unduly. At the same time, it needs to be factored in that the delay is not always on account of the conduct of the parties involved. The delay may also be occasioned by the inability of the court to take up proceedings expeditiously".
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for Allahabad High Court Bar Association, said the 2018 directions were causing a lot of difficulties, and in fact, those directions were like Obiter Dicta. Dwivedi said the question was if under Article 21 of the Constitution to ensure speedy trial, could the power under Article 226 of the High Court be curtailed like this.
Agreeing with Dwivedi’s contention, the bench said it is not always due to lapse of parties that the matters are not taken up, the court can say stay will operate till a particular date or till further orders. After hearing Dwivedi, the apex court decided to put the matter before a five-judge constitution bench and sought the assistance of Attorney General R Venkatramani or Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.
The bench said, in its order, said, “The principle, which has been laid down in the above decision to the effect that the stay shall automatically stand vacated (which would mean an automatic vacation of stay without application of judicial mind to whether the stay should or should not be extended further) is liable to result in a serious miscarriage of justice”.
The court said since the previous judgment was passed by a three-judge bench, the matter is required to be reconsidered by a five-judge bench and indicated the matter would be listed on an early date. The previous judgment in the case of 'Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency vs CBI' was delivered on March 28, 2018, by a bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel, RF Nariman and Navin Sinha (all since retired).
The apex court, in its order, said: “Since the decision in Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency (P) Ltd is of a Bench of three Judges, we are of the considered opinion that it would be appropriate to have the matter referred to a larger Bench of five Judges. The Registry shall take appropriate directions on the administrative side so that the correctness of the view can be reconsidered at an early date”.
