It is essential to emphasize, while Afjal did not enumerate any material facts regarding ‘irreversible consequences’, High Courts or Supreme Court are well empowered to take judicial notice of consequences.

– Hon’ble Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan, Afjal Ansari v. State of Uttar Pradesh, [Criminal Appeal No. 3838 of 2023].

Surya Kant J’s Judgment is so well considered and supplemented with an enviable degree of articulation, it almost prompted my concurrence.

Court has differently dealt with approaches made by, inter alia, a Managing Director of a Company, a Member of Legislative Assembly/Parliament, a Film Actor/Bank Officer/Principal, while they sought for a stay of conviction. No Court, much less this Court, should feel chained by misplaced sympathy towards assumed or imagined ramifications.

If a mere disqualification, without anything more being on record, should be considered as amounting to ‘irreversible consequences’, it would inevitably result in this Court sailing in an unnavigable sea of generalization where, upon disqualification suffered due to conviction, a Parliamentarian would be entitled to an automatic stay on his conviction without requisite pleadings.

A fundamental flaw of absence of pleadings in Afjal’s case exposes its vulnerability since its very inception. It is well-settled, one needs to plead ‘irreversible consequences’ to have a conviction stayed, and by extension, get a disqualification lifted. Nowhere did Afjal plead, there being a real prospect of his projection as a candidate from Ghazipur or any other constituency, ‘irreversible consequences’ would ensue if his right to contest is scuttled by reason of conviction.

– Hon’ble Justice Dipankar Datta, Afjal Ansari v. State of Uttar Pradesh, [Criminal Appeal No. 3838 of 2023].