The Supreme Court put a stay on the three farm laws as an Interim order

The Supreme Court put a stay on the three farm laws as an Interim order

Subject: Polity

Context: The Supreme Court has put a stay on the three farm laws while hearing petitions dealing with issues leading to farmers protest due to these laws.

Concept:

• The Supreme Court under article 13, 31 and also art 136 and 143 gets implicit power for judicial review.
• Judicial Review is power of judiciary to review the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body.
• Under this power Supreme Court examines the constitutionality of any laws or executive action.

Staying the laws:

• Stay on the laws are different from holding it unconstitutional. It just prevents it from implementation till the time matter is decided by the court.
• Traditionally the courts have taken approach not to pass interim order to stop implementation. For ex- Even in case of NJAC, Act it didn’t put stay, even though later on held it unconstitutional.
• However, Supreme Courts have pout stay on orders passed by the High courts time to time. Apart from that it has stayed away from putting a stay. Generally, approach is that the Parliament’s power to legislate, drawn from Article 254(1) of the Constitution, can only be restricted if the law violates the Constitution.
• Three grounds for halting implementation of laws:

1. 1. Legislative competence: if parliament has no power to legislate on the matter.
   2. Violation of fundamental rights
   3. Violations of any other Part of the Constitution

What next?

• The Centre opposed stay on law, yet, the order passed means the Supreme Court taking position based on consideration of matter of “public interest”. Though, this is welcome it may bring back the question of judicial overreach.
• For now possibility is that the SC may propose a court-led committee to look into laws and associated problems.