New Delhi: The Supreme Court’s decision in Mritunjay Tiwari v Union of India brings back a question the court has grappled with across decades of constitutional adjudication: when does interim serve as a legitimate pause for reflection, and when does it begin to resemble a final verdict delivered without final hearing?The controversy around the 2026 UGC Equity Regulations has largely been framed as a clash between two positions — those who see the stay as an abdication of the court’s duty to protect marginalised communities from caste discrimination, and those who view the Regulations themselves as poorly drafted and potentially counterproductive. A closer reading of the interim order, the critiques surrounding it, and the court’s own past practice suggests a more nuanced picture. At the outset, it is important to locate the stay within the court’s established jurisprudence on interim relief. Traditionally, the Supreme Court has insisted that a stay of legislation or subordinate legislation must satisfy three conditions: the existence of a prima facie case, the likelihood of irreparable harm if the law is allowed to operate, and a balance of convenience favouring the petitioner. In practice, however, the court’s record has been uneven. In some cases, it has refused to stay laws with sweeping consequences – as in the prolonged challenges to the Aadhaar framework – while in others, it has not hesitated to grant immediate relief.Also read: UGC: India’s Higher Education Needs More Than Symbolic Equity-Driven MeasuresOne instructive comparison is the court’s approach to the Constitution (Ninety-Third Amendment) Act, 2005 and the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, which extended OBC reservations to centrally funded institutions. In 2007–08, the court stayed the implementation of the OBC quota in elite institutions, citing the need for reliable data on backwardness and exclusion of the creamy layer. That interim stay was criticised at the time as judicial overreach and insensitivity to social justice. Yet, after a full hearing, the court ultimately upheld the constitutional amendment and the statute, subject to safeguards. The episode illustrates that an interim stay does not necessarily signal hostility to the underlying principle; it can also reflect judicial discomfort with the architecture through which that principle is operationalised.Seen in this light, the present stay of the 2026 Regulations can be read more as a rejection of the need to address caste-based discrimination and less as a pause prompted by drafting choices that raise genuine legal and institutional questions. Notably, the court has framed its concerns around ambiguity in the drafting of the Regulations, and the potential of its misuse.The key point of friction lies in the relationship between the general definition of “discrimination” and the specific definition of “caste-based discrimination” in the 2026 Regulations. Unlike the 2012 framework, which catalogued concrete forms of discriminatory conduct across academic and social life, the new Regulations rely heavily on broad definitions and institutional discretion. Reasonable classification testThe court’s question – whether a separate definition of caste-based discrimination serves any purpose – does raise a classic administrative law concern about redundancy, confusion, and uneven enforcement. But in its order, the court has framed the issue as whether defining caste-based discrimination bears a reasonable and rational nexus to subserve the object and purpose of the Regulations. The court has cited the absence of distinct or special procedural mechanism in the Regulations to address caste-based discrimination to buttress its tentative view that it may not bear such a nexus. The reasonable classification test is a two-step test where the state has to establish that a classification created by state action has an intelligible differentia and that the differentia is rationally related to the object of the law. The shortcomings of the reasonable classification test have gradually become clearer with time, especially as the court has increasingly had to contend with markers of identity not expressly mentioned in Articles 15 and 16 of the constitution. The reasonable classification principle does not provide the judiciary with tools to serve the cause of substantive equality. In Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India, the Supreme Court, while striking down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, articulated its concerns over the reasonable classification principle thus: “Equating the content of equality with the reasonableness of a classification on which a law is based advances the cause of legal formalism. The problem with the classification test is that what constitutes a reasonable classification is reduced to a mere formula: the quest for an intelligible differentia and the rational nexus to the object sought to be achieved. In doing so, the test of classification risks elevating form over substance. The danger inherent in legal formalism lies in its inability to lay threadbare the values which guide the process of judging constitutional rights. Legal formalism buries the life-giving forces of the constitution under a mere mantra. What it ignores is that Article 14 contains a powerful statement of values – of the substance of equality before the law and the equal protection of laws. To reduce it to a formal exercise of classification may miss the true value of equality as a safeguard against arbitrariness in state action….” In Navtej Johar, the court clearly went beyond the reasonable classification test and examined the legitimacy of the objective. In Lt. Col. Nitisha v Union of India (2021), the court held that in order to achieve substantive equality, indirect discrimination, even sans discriminatory intent, must be prohibited. In the present case, the question may well be asked if Clause 3(1)(c) of the Regulations goes, would it not result in indirect discrimination against the Scheduled Castes and Tribes?Other concernsThe court’s anxiety about the term “segregation” in hostel and classroom allocation provisions reflects a concern that imprecise language can invite misinterpretation by institutions that are either hostile or indifferent to the spirit of equity. While the intention of the provision may be to ensure transparency in affirmative measures, its phrasing arguably lacks the clarity that a rights-protective regulation demands.The comparison with the 2012 Regulations is instructive here. Those rules were themselves a product of sustained litigation and public concern following student deaths linked to caste discrimination on campuses. Whatever their limitations in implementation, the earlier rules were more explicit in identifying prohibited conduct and clearer in institutional coverage, even if their enforcement record revealed serious gaps that the present litigation itself brings into focus. The decision to revive them temporarily underscores that the court is not leaving a formal regulatory vacuum, even as questions remain about the adequacy of that framework in practice. The revival of the 2012 Regulations also lends some credence to the argument that the court is responding to concerns shared across caste lines. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have criticised the 2026 Regulations for diluting earlier safeguards, while sections of the so-called general category have challenged them as exclusionary. The stay, paradoxically, reflects dissatisfaction from both ends of the spectrum.That said, a separate concern, independent of the merits of the Regulations themselves, relates to the form of the interim order. The Supreme Court has, over the years, emphasised that interim relief must be justified through a structured assessment of prima facie case, irreparable harm, and balance of convenience. Where such articulation is absent, especially in constitutionally sensitive matters, interim directions risk acquiring a durability that was never intended. What will matter, ultimately, is what follows. The court has, in the past, used interim pauses to eventually endorse contested social policy after fuller scrutiny, as the experience with reservations in higher education illustrates. If the present pause leads to a careful engagement with both the constitutional promise of equality and the practical design of regulatory safeguards, the stay may come to be seen as a moment of caution rather than endorsement of the status quo. If not, it will revive the familiar concern that interim orders, meant to be temporary, have quietly assumed a determinative role in constitutional governance.