Stare decisis is a Latin term meaning “to abide by decided cases”. The doctrine that, when a court has once laid down a principle of law applicable to a certain set of facts, it will adhere to that principle and apply it to future cases where the facts are substantially the same. This is a defining characteristic of the common law system, which also has partial impact on Civil law system. of decisions all proceeded on the assumption that it was a valid law is not a cogent reason to disregard the conclusion convincingly ar­rived at that consistently with the Constitution the validity of the impugned provisions could not be sustained. [Attorney General of Australia vs. The Queen. (1958) 10 DLR 9(PC)]

The mere fact that some Courts of the country have for a few years adopted a particular interpretation of a le­gal provisions, is, by no means a sufficient reason for maintaining that interpretation, if it is clearly opposed to some general principles. The principle of stare decisis is not applicable to a case where only some of the Courts in a country have taken a partic­ular view and that too for a comparatively short peri­od. [MA Chowdhury vs. Messrs. Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd.(1970) 22 DLR (SC) 334]