Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
JAGJIT BUS SERVICE (REGD.) AMRITSAR, THROUGHITS MANAGING PAR
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
STATE TRANSPORT COMMISSIONER, PUNJAB AND ANR.
DATE OF JUDGMENT27/07/1987
BENCH:
VENKATARAMIAH, E.S. (J)
BENCH:
VENKATARAMIAH, E.S. (J)
SINGH, K.N. (J)
CITATION:
1987 AIR 2272 1987 SCR (3) 661
1987 SCC (4) 131 JT 1987 (3) 185
1987 SCALE (2)143
ACT:
Motor Vehicles Act, 1939---Issue of Stage Carriage
Permits-Statutory Authorities should discharge duties im-
posed on them by the Act by giving primary consideration to
public interest and also to fundamental rights of citizens
to carry motor transport business in accordance with law.
HEADNOTE:
The appellant, a stage carriage operator, applied for
renewal of a permit to ply his bus on a particular route but
was granted only a temporary permit to do so. Thereafter he
applied for issue of a regular permit, but once again,
action was initiated for issue of a temporary permit only.
Aggrieved by this approach of respondent No. 1, who was
exercising the power of the Regional Transport authorities
in the State, the appellant filed a writ petition seeking a
direction that respondent No. 1 should consider and grant
stage carriage permits to eligible persons under s. 46 read
with s. 57(2) and grant renewal of such permits under s. 58
of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. The High Court dismissed
the petition at the admission stage.
Respondent No. 1, in his counter affidavit, stated that
the State Government had approved and published two Schemes
under s. 68(D) (2) of the Act for grant of stage carriage
permits in favour of State Transport Undertakings and pri-
vate operators in two specified areas of the State which
envisaged the complete take over of all the routes by the
State Transport Undertakings in a phased manner within 3
years of the expiry of the Scheme. Since the State Transport
Undertakings had not taken over the operations from the
private operators in accordance with the two Schemes and the
State Government had neither announced new schemes to re-
place them, nor declared its transport policy, Respondent
No. 1 had considered it inadvisable to grant regular permits
on long term basis and was issuing temporary permits only.
Allowing the appeal by special leave,
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HELD: The Transport Authorities which are statutory
authorities have to discharge the duties imposed on them by
the Act without waiting for any policy to be announced by
the State Government. In doing so, primary consideration
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should be given to the public interest and also to the
fundamental right of the citizens to carry on motor trans-
port business in accordance with law. This Court has ob-
served in several decisions that a Regional Transport Au-
thority would be failing in its duty if it grants repeatedly
temporary permits to ply stage carriages on routes even
though it is aware of the fact that there is a permanent
need for granting regular permits in respect of the said
routes. [666E; G]
The entire policy followed by the State Government and
the 1st Respondent is contrary to the general scheme of the
Act. The schemes said to have been published under s.68-D do
not specify any notified routes or any notified areas. It is
not possible also to find out from the said schemes whether
private operators have been excluded from any particular
area or route. The schemes appear to be incomplete and,
therefore, are ineffective. In the above situation the
Regional Transport authorities whose functions have been
delegated under the Act to the State Transport Commissioner,
Punjab, cannot decline to grant stage carriage permits on
applications properly made to them by intending operators
only because the State Government has not announced its
transport policy. The State Government cannot have any
policy different from or independent of the provisions
contained in Chapters IV and IV-A of the Act. [666B-E]
In the instant case, it is not denied that there is a
permanent need to grant permits to ply stage carriages on
the several routes in the State of Punjab. The policy adopt-
ed by the 1st Respondent, namely, issuing of temporary
permits from time to time, is highly irregular and is
against the language and spirit of s. 62 of the Act, which
provides for the grant of temporary permits. [666F]
JUDGMENT:
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION:Civil Appeal No. 1522 of
1987.
From the Judgment and order dated 29.7.1986 of the
Punjab and Haryana High Court in Civil Writ Petition No.
3464 of 1986.
Mohan Pandey and Baldev Kapoor for the Appellant.
N.K. Sodhi, Mrs. Indu Goswamy for the Respondent.
663
The following Order of the Court was delivered:
ORDER
Special leave granted. The appeal is heard.
This appeal by special leave is filed against the Order
dated 29.7. 1986 passed by the High Court of Punjab and
Haryana rejecting the writ petition filed by the appellant
inter alia for the issue of the writ in the nature of manda-
mus, directing the State Transport Commissioner, Punjab, who
is exercising the powers of the Regional Transport authori-
ties in the State of Punjab to grant permits to ply stage
carriages on the route Taran Taran --Muktsar via Ferozepur
and Sadiq under Chapter IV of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939
(hereinafter referred to as ’the Act’) and to dispose of the
applications for renewal of stage carriage permits which are
pending before the Regional Transport authorities.
The appellant was a transferee of a bus along with two
permits to operate one return trip on the route Taran
Taran--Muktsar via Ferozepur and Sadiq. Those permits could
not be renewed owing to the default on the part of the
transferor to make within time an application for the renew-
al of the said permits before the permits were actually
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transferred. Therefore, the State Transport Commissioner,
Punjab, who was exercising the powers of the Regional Trans-
port authorities instead of granting regular permits on
applications made under section 46 of the Act granted tempo-
rary permits in favour of the appellant on the route in
question. Thereafter despite the request of the appellant to
issue regular permits the State Transport Commissioner
proceeded to invite applications for the grant of temporary
stage carriage permits. Pursuant to the said notification
the appellant and some others made applications. For some
reasons which need not be set out here the application of
the appellant was rejected and the temporary permits were
granted in favour of the 2nd respondent. The appeals filed
against the order granting temporary permits in favour of
the 2nd respondent became infructuous as the period for
which they had been granted expired before the appeals could
be disposed of.
Be that as it may, the main grievance of the appellant
has been that the State Transport Commissioner, Punjab, who
is exercising the powers of the Regional Transport authori-
ties has failed to discharge his duty under the Act which
requires him to consider and grant stage carriage permits on
applications made under section 46 read with sec-
664
tion 57(2) of the Act where there is need to do so to appli-
cants who are eligible to be granted such permits and to
grant renewal of such permits on applications for renewal
made under section 58 of the Act. The appellant, therefore,
bled the writ petition, out of which this appeal arises,
before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana for appropriate
relief. The said writ petition was dismissed at the stage of
admission. Aggrieved by the order of the High Court the
appellant has filed this appeal by special leave.
When the Special Leave Petition came up for hearing on
September 16, 1986 notice was issued to the State Transport
Commissioner requiring him to show cause as to why he should
not be directed to take action on applications made under
section 46 of the Act for granting permits to ply stage
carriages instead of issuing temporary permits under section
62 of the Act periodically, even though there was permanent
need to grant regular stage carriage permits. In reply to
the said notice the 1st Respondent has filed a counter-
affidavit, the relevant portion of which is as follows:
" In the State of Punjab two separate
schemes with regard to the grant of stage
carriage permits in favour of the State Trans-
port Undertakings and the Private Operators
were approved by the Government of Punjab
under sub-section (2) of section 68(D) of the
Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. Out of the two
schemes one is called ’Punjab Roadways Scheme’
operative in the erstwhile Punjab areas and
the other is called ’Pepsu Road Transport
Corporation Scheme’ operative in the erstwhile
Pepsu areas. The schemes for Punjab Roadways
and Pepsu Road Transport Corporation were
published on 19.11.1969 and 18.2.1972 respec-
tively. A copy of both the schemes are exhib-
ited as Annexure R1 and R2.
According to the above notifications
the Punjab Government had announced that:
(i) 60% operation will be undertaken by the
Punjab Roadways and the remaining 40% by the
existing private operators and new entrants in
the ratio of 30: 10, respectively in the areas
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of erstwhile Punjab State.
(ii) 60% operation will be undertaken by the
Pepsu Road Transport Corporation and 40% by
the private operators in Pepsu territory.
665
(iii) Notifications further provided that the
schemes will have the effect for a period of 7
years (upto 18.11.1976) in Punjab State and
will last till 30th June 1977 in the Pepsu
territory.
(iv) After the expiry of 7 years (upto
18.11.1976) in the case of Punjab Scheme and
from 1st July, 1977 in the Pepsu territory,
1/3rd operations of the private operators will
be taken over by the Punjab Roadways/Pepsu
Road Transport Corporation every year to
complete the take over in three years.
Neither the Punjab Roadways nor the
Pepsu Transport Corporation have taken over
the operations from the private operators in
the terms of above mentioned notifications nor
new schemes have been announced by the Govern-
ment. The transport operations have, however,
to be continued as at present to save the
public from inconvenience. At the same time it
will not be advisable to grant regular permits
on long terms basis in the absence of any
transport policy announced by the Punjab
Government. Under these circumstances I am
granting/issuing permits on temporary basis
after following the prescribed procedure laid
down under section 47 of the Motor Vehicles
Act, 1939 and after giving due hearings to all
the applicants at the time of initial grant.
As soon as the new transport policy is fina-
lised by the Government all the stage carriage
permits granted on temporary basis due to
non-finalisation of transport policy will be
granted on regular basis after following the
procedure as laid down under sections 57(2)
and 57(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. It
may, however, be added here that the State
Government is in the process of finalising a
new Transport policy."
A reading of the counter-affidavit filed by the State
Transport Commissioner, Punjab practically does not set-up
any defence at all to the prayer made by the appellant. The
counter-affidavit refers to two schemes, namely, the Punjab
Roadways Scheme and the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation
Scheme approved under section 68-D of the Act, which were
published on 19.11.1969 and 18.2.1972 respectively. It is,
however, admitted that neither the Punjab Roadways nor the
Pepsu Road Transport Corporation have taken over the opera-
tions from the private operators in terms of the above-
mentioned notifica-
666
tions nor any new scheme has been announced by the Punjab
Government. The 1st Respondent further states that since
there was general inconvenience, the temporary permits were
being issued after following the prescribed procedure laid
down under the Act. The affidavit further says that due to
the non-finalisation of the transport policy by the State
Government it was not possible to issue regular permits to
run stage carriages by following the procedure prescribed
under sections 57(2) and 57(3) of the Act. We are of the
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view that the entire policy followed by the State Government
and the 1st Respondent is contrary to the general scheme of
the Act. The schemes said to have been published under
section 68-D of the Act do not specify any notified routes
or any notified areas. It is not possible also to find out
from the said scheme whether private operators have been
excluded from any particular area of route. The schemes
appear to be incomplete and, therefore, are ineffective. In
the above situation the Regional Transport authorities whose
functions have been delegated under the Act to the State
Transport Commissioner, Punjab, cannot decline to grant
stage carriage permits on applications properly made to them
by intending operators only because the State Government has
not announced its transport policy. The State Government
cannot have any policy different from or independent of the
provisions contained in Chapter IV and Chapter IV-A of the
Act. The Transport Authorities which are statutory authori-
ties have to discharge the duties imposed on them by the Act
without waiting for any policy to be announced by the State
Government. In doing so primary consideration should be
given to the public interest and also to the fundamental
right of the citizens to carry on motor transport business
in accordance with law. It is not denied that there is a
permanent need to grant permits to ply stage carriages on
the several routes in the State of Punjab. In the circum-
stances, the policy adopted by the 1st Respondent, namely,
issuing of temporary permits from time to time, appears to
be a highly irregular one. It is against the language and
spirit of section 62 of the Act, which provides for the
grant of temporary permits. This Court has observed in
several decisions that a Regional Transport Authority would
be failing in its duty if it grants repeatedly temporary
permits to ply stage carriages on routes even though it is
aware of the fact that there is a permanent need for grant-
ing regular permits in respect of the said routes. The fact
that the State of Punjab is thinking of finalising a new
transport policy can have no bearing on the question in
issue.
We are, therefore, of the view that the 1st Respondent
cannot successfully resist the writ petition out of which
this appeal arises. In the circumstances we feel that it is
appropriate to issue a writ in the
667
nature of mandamus to the Regional Transport authorities in
Punjab. whose duties are being discharged by the State
Transport Commissioner, Punjab, to take immediate steps to
invite applications suo motu under section 57(2) of the Act
for issuing regular stage carriage permits to deserving
applicants, to grant stage carriage permits to deserving
applications who make applications for the stage carriage
permits in accordance with law and to dispose of the appli-
cations for renewal, if any, made under section 58 of the
Act by the holders of stage carriage permits. We accordingly
direct the Regional Transport authorities in the State of
Punjab to take immediate steps to invite applications suo
moat under section 57(2) of the Act for issuing regular
permits to deserving applicants to ply stage carriages in
respect of the routes where there is a permanent need, to
dispose of the applications made by persons who wish to ply
stage carriages on the said routes in accordance with law
and to dispose of the applications that may be pending
before the Regional Transport authorities for renewal of
stage carriage permits under section 58 of the Act. All
these steps should be taken within four months from today.
The temporary permits which are now in force shall cease on
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the expiry of the period of four months and the Regional
Transport authorities are directed not to issue any fresh
temporary permits where there is permanent need for granting
a stage carriage permits after four months.
This appeal is allowed accordingly. There shall, howev-
er, be no order as to costs.
A copy of this order shall be sent to the Chief Secre-
tary to the State of Punjab within a week for information
and implementation of the above directions.
H.L.C. Appeal allowed.
668