BOSTON--Frustrating the state's efforts to certify five ballot questions from the November election, an appeals court judge yesterday delayed his ruling on whether to uphold a restraining order blocking enactment of the state referenda results.

"My instinct is to say we do have before us a serious constitutional challenge," Appeals Court Associate Justice Christopher J. Armstrong said after listening to both sides. Declining to lift the temporary restraining order immediately, Armstrong said he will issue his decision today.

The two attorneys representing four plaintiffs suing the state charged Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly with violating the state constitution by not printing summaries of the nine referenda in voting booths.

No voting booth in the state carried any summaries of the ballot questions. Instead, Connolly provided separate paper summaries at polling sites.

Among the five disputed referenda is Question 9, which would repeal rent control effective January 1, 1995.

Chapter 129, a law passed by the state legislature in August, permitted Connolly, who administered the referendum, to provide the paper summaries, rather than printing them on the ballots, as Article 48 of the state constitution requires.

Ruth A. Bourquin, one of two attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said the conduct of the referenda was unconstitutional. But Assistant Attorney General Peter Sacks argued that in approving Chapter 129, the state redefined a "ballot" to include separate paper summaries.

Citing a case in 1936 in which justices threw out an election with nearly identical circumstances, Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Hiller B. Zobel '53 Tuesday granted a 10-day temporary restraining order preventing Connolly from delivering the five referenda to the Governor's Council for certification.

A certification is the first step in the enactment of state referenda.

Attorney General L. Scott Harshbarger '64 appealed Zobel's ruling Wednesday.

In a statement to the court, Sacks argued that the plaintiffs failed to show "imminent irreparable harm" in seeking emergency relief from the Superior Court ruling.

Along with the rent control referendum, the other affected questions are Question 3, a change in the funding structure of Mass. Student PIRG; Question 4, a term-limits measure; Question 5, an easing of "blue laws," and Question 8, which would raise gasoline-tax spending on highways.

Of the referenda, Question 5--which would permit stores to open Sunday mornings--would be the first to take effect. Retailers have already begun preparations to extend Sunday hours starting December 11.

"[Question 5] permits them to open," Sacks responded in his argument against the need for a restraining order. "It does not require [employees] to work, it allows them to."

Blue-collar workers, including the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, are largely opposed to Question 5.

As for Question 9, Sacks pointed to the State House votes this week on three home-rule petitions from Cambridge, Boston and Brookline--the three communities with rent control. The House of Representatives passed all three petitions Tuesday, and the Senate is expected to vote on them tomorrow.