The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said courts should be very slow in granting interim relief by way of staying the provisions of an enactment.
In its judgment on pleas for staying the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, a bench of Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih said that interim relief of such a nature can be granted in rare and exceptional cases.
The court said such a stay can be granted where parties are in a position to point out that either the legislature which enacted the law lacks legislative competence or the provisions are ex-facie in violation of any of the provisions in Part III of the Constitution or constitutional principles or is manifestly arbitrary.
"There is always a presumption in favour of the constitutionality of an enactment and the burden is upon him who attacks it to show that there has been a clear transgression of the constitutional principles," the bench said.
The court emphasised the legislature understands and correctly appreciates the need of its own people, that its laws are directed to problems made by experience and that its discrimination is based on adequate grounds.
"In order to sustain the presumption of constitutionality, the court may take into consideration matters of common knowledge, matters of common report, the history of the times and may assume every state of facts which can be conceived existing at the time of legislation," the bench said.