The Supreme Court has sent out a clear message to High Courts: you cannot shut the door on a writ petition and still leave a window open through an interim stay.
Hearing a challenge arising from an order of the Bombay High Court, a Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma disapproved of a growing judicial habit — declining to entertain a writ petition on the ground that an alternate statutory remedy exists, yet granting interim protection to allow the petitioner time to approach that alternative forum.
The top court described this as self-contradictory and out of step with judicial discipline.
The issue arose after the High Court refused to hear a writ petition, pointing out that the petitioner had an efficacious alternative remedy available. However, in the same breath, it granted an interim stay on the impugned order so the petitioner could seek relief before the appropriate forum.
The Supreme Court was blunt: once a High Court applies its mind and decides not to exercise its discretionary writ jurisdiction because another remedy is available, the matter ends there. The proceedings, it said, “must draw to an end then and there.” Nothing survives that would justify granting interim relief — whether in the form of a stay or a status quo order.
Granting such protection after declining the petition, the Bench observed, runs directly against binding precedent laid down decades ago in State of Orissa v. Madan Gopal Rungta. In that Constitution Bench ruling, the court had made it clear that interim relief cannot stand independently when the main proceeding itself is not being entertained.
In effect, the Supreme Court cautioned that courts cannot decline to adjudicate and yet simultaneously shield the petitioner from the consequences of the very order under challenge. To do so would blur the line between refusal and relief — a line the Constitution Bench had drawn with precision.
Ending with a note of expectation rather than reprimand, the Bench expressed confidence that High Courts would take due notice of the binding precedent and ensure that such contradictory orders do not recur.
The case was titled Mangal Rajendra Kamthe v. Tahsildar, Purandhar & Ors.
