Interim Orders and the Limits of Article 142: Safeguarding Natural Justice Balancing Judicial Powers and Litigants' Rights

Limits on Article 142: extraordinary power cannot automatically vacate interim stays; natural justice and supervisory jurisdiction must be preserved.

Limits on the Supreme Court's extraordinary jurisdiction were defined to prevent blanket, time based vacation of interim stays; equitable power cannot deprive non parties of substantive benefits or negate the right to be heard. The Court confined vacation rules to cases where interim relief was granted without notice, instructed High Courts to grant limited ad interim relief, prioritise vacation applications, avoid routine time bound disposal directives, and recognised that past automatic vacations that led to concluded trials raise finality concerns while endorsing judicial superintendence and natural justice as constitutional constraints.