Short answer. No. Rule 65 states that the petition shall not interrupt the course of the principal case unless a temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction has been issued enjoining the public respondent from further proceeding. Without one, the lower court must press on — the rule even requires it to.
What the law says
The petition shall not interrupt the course of the principal case, unless a temporary restraining order or a writ of preliminary injunction has been issued, enjoining the public respondent from further proceeding in the case.
Rule 65, Section 7 — Expediting proceedings; injunctive relief. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Failure of the public respondent to proceed with the principal case may be a ground for an administrative charge.
Rule 65, Section 7 — Expediting proceedings; injunctive relief. Read the full provision →
No automatic suspension
The rule is categorical: the petition shall not interrupt the course of the principal case, unless a temporary restraining order or a writ of preliminary injunction has been issued, enjoining the public respondent from further proceeding in the case. A certiorari petition attacks a specific act of the lower court — an order alleged to have been issued without or in excess of jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion — but the attack runs on a separate track. The main case below continues: hearings proceed, deadlines fall due, and the trial can march all the way to judgment while the petition is being resolved.
The lower court is required to keep going
The rule does not merely permit the court below to continue — it commands it. Absent a restraining order or injunction, or upon its expiration, the public respondent shall proceed with the principal case within ten days from the filing of a petition for certiorari with the higher court. And the command has teeth: failure of the public respondent to proceed with the principal case may be a ground for an administrative charge. A judge who suspends the case out of deference to a pending petition is not being cautious; the rule treats that pause as a dereliction.
If you need the case stopped, ask for it
The same section supplies the tool: the court where the petition is filed may also grant a temporary restraining order or a writ of preliminary injunction for the preservation of the rights of the parties pending such proceedings. That relief is not automatic and not implied — it must be applied for, justified, and granted. If the whole point of your petition would be defeated by the case continuing — say, the trial will consume the very right you claim was violated — the application for injunctive relief is as essential as the petition itself, and it should be filed with it, not after the damage is under way.
Plan for both tracks
The practical consequence: never treat a certiorari petition as a pause button. Until an injunction issues, you must keep litigating the main case as though the petition did not exist — attending hearings, meeting deadlines, presenting evidence — or risk losing below while waiting to win above. Ask counsel candidly what happens to the principal case in the months the petition may take, whether a restraining order is realistically obtainable, and what the fallback is if it is not. The parties who are burned by this rule are almost always the ones who assumed the filing alone had frozen everything.