TMI Blog1985 (10) TMI 272X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ied routes or part of the notified routes. All the appeals and Special Leave Petitions are therefore dismissed, with costs which we quantify at ₹ 2,500 in each. All the interim orders of this court which enabled the appellants to operate their vehicles on notified routes or part of notified routes or which enabled the appellants to apply for and obtain permits to 80 operate, with or without the so- called corridor restrictions are hereby vacated. Appeals and Petitions dismissed. - - - - - Dated:- 17-10-1985 - O. Chinnappa Reddy, E.S. Venkataramiah, V. Balakrishna Eradi, R.B. Misra, V. Khalid, JJ. JUDGMENT These appeals have been placed before us primarily to resolve a conflict between Ram Sanehi Singh v. Bihar State Road Transport Corporation [1971] 3 S.C.C. 797, Mysore State Road Transport Corporation v. Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal and Others [1975] 1 S.C.R. 493, and Mysore State Road Transport Corporation v. Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal and others [1975] 1 S.C.R. 615. The question for our consideration is, where a route is nationalised under Chapter IV-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, whether a private operator with a permit to ply a stage carriage over ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... anari was nationalised by the Uttar Pradesh Government, The whole of the route Rewa to Allahabad was nationalised by the Madhya Pradesh Government with the concurrence of the Central Government, but with exemptions in favour of the existing operator plying under inter-state agreements, though the matter has not been made very clear to us. me appellant claims that notwithstanding the nationalisation of the route from Allahabad to Chakghat, he is entitled to ply that stage carriage over that part of the route also by observing corridor restrictions . In Civil Appeal No. 2921 of 1981, the State of Rajasthan has nationalised part of an inter- state route and the complaint is that the appellant should have been permitted to ply his stage carriage over the entire route with corridor restrictions over the nationalised part of the route. In Civil Appeal Nos. 164-166 of 1982, the complaint is that a very insignificant portion of the route on which the appellants hold stage carriage- permits is included in a nationalised route and therefore, the scheme should have exempted the operation of private stage carriages over the common sector. The right of the members of the public to pass an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... uent upon the seeming acceptance by High Court in Nilkantha Prasad and Others v. State of Bihar, [1962] Supp. 1 S.C.R. 728 of the suggested difference between 'route' and 'highway' by the Privy Council in Kalani Valley Motor Transit Co. Ltd., v. Colombo Ratnapura Omnibus Co. Ltd., 1946 A.C. 338 where it was said, A highway is the physical track along which an omnibus runs, whilst a route appears to their Lordships to be an abstract conception of line of travel between one terminus and another, and to be something distinct from the highway traversed ....... there may be alternative roads leading from one terminus to another but that does not make the route any highway the same. The present definition of route makes it a physical reality instead of an abstract conception and no longer make it something distinct from the highway traversed. Getting back to the highway and Chapter IVA, we first notice s.68-A(a) which defines road transport service to mean a service of / tor vehicles carrying passengers or goods or both by road for hire or reward. Next, and this is important, 8. 68-B gives over-riding effect to the provisions of Chapter IVA and the rules and orders m ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rnment; and (iii) any local authority or police authority within whose jurisdiction any part of the area or route proposed to be covered by the scheme lies to file objections to the scheme before the State Government within 30 days from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette. Clause 2 of sec. 68-D empowers the State Government to consider the objections, give an opportunity to the objector or his representatives and the representatives of the State Transport Undertaking to be heard in the matter if they so desire and approve or modify the scheme. Clause 3 of sec. 68-D requires the scheme as approved or modified to be published in the Official Gazette whereupon the scheme becomes final and shall thereafter be called an approved scheme. There 18 a proviso to clause 3 which provides that no scheme which relates to any inter-state route shall be deemed to be an approved scheme unless lt has been published with the previous approval of the Central Government. Section 68-E enables the State Transport-Undertaking to cancel or modify any scheme published under 88. 68-D(3) after following the procedure laid down in sec. 68-C and sec. 68-D in respect of certain matters, such as, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... and the date or publication of the approved or modified scheme. Sub-sec. 2 of sec. 68-F enables the State Transport Authority the Regional Transport Authority as the case may be, for the purpose of giving effect to the approved scheme in respect of a notified area or notified route, to refuse to entertain any application for the grant or renewal of any permit or reject any such application as may be pending, to cancel any existing permit, and to modify the terms of any existing permit so as to render the permit ineffective beyond a specified date, to reduce the number of vehicles authorised to be used under the permit and to curtail the area or route covered by the permit in 80 far as such permit relates to the notified area or notified route. Section 68- FF prohibits the grant of any permit except in accordance with a provision of the scheme, once a scheme has been published under sec.68-D(3) in respect of any notified area or notified route. This is an important provision and we may extract it here. It is as follows: 68-FF where a scheme has been published under sub- section 3 of sec.68-D in respect of any notified area or notified route, the State Transport Authority or t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to object to the scheme and suggest such modification as may protect him. A hearing is required to be given and the hearing is no empty formality as decisions of this Court have shown. Even that is not an end of the matter. Even thereafter, the State Transport Undertaking as well as the State Government are empowered to cancel or modify the scheme under sec. 68-E. In other words, if in the actual working of the approved scheme any difficulty or hardship is experienced by the public or for that matter by other operators, such difficulty may be removed and hardship relieved by appropriate action under section 68-E. both sec.68F and the proviso to sec.68-FF provide for the issue of temporary permits to private operators if the State Transport Undertaking has not applied for a permit temporary or otherwise in respect of scheme published or approved. We thus find chat at every stage, abundant provision is made to protect the public interest as also the interest of private operators by providing for consideration and reconsideration of any problems that may arise out of a proposed, published or approved scheme. It is in that context, we must construe sec.68-C and sec.68HH both of which p ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is also well known that often times permits for plying stage carriages from a point a short distance beyond one terminus to a point a short distance beyond another terminus of a notified route have been applied for and granted subject to the so-called corridor restrictions, which are but more ruses or traps to obtain permits and to frustrate the scheme. If indeed there is any need for protecting the travelling public from inconvenience as suggested by the learned counsel we have no doubt that the State Transport Undertaking and the Government will make a sufficient provision in the scheme itself to avoid inconvenience being caused to the travelling public. One of the submissions urged was that a route, according to definition, meant a line drawn between two terminii and therefore, route AB cannot be the same route as CD even if C D happened to be two points on the highway from A to B. It was argued that if route AB was different from route CD, the nationalisation of route CD had no effect whatsoever on the permits to ply stage carriages on the route AB. This argument is specious and is only to be stated to be rejected. In fact, whatever argument was open to the learned counse ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... apped the Mysore District challenged the scheme and contended that their permits should not be affected merely because parts of the routes were within the Mysore District. Their contention was that since the terminii of the routes on which they were operating vehicles were outside Mysore District it could not properly be said that any portion of their route had been taken over merely because it lay within the Mysore District. It was held by this court that a route meant not only the notional line but also the actual road over which the motor vehicles ran and in view of the fact that the scheme reserved all the routes within the Mysore District to the State Transport Undertaking, no private operator could be allowed to ply his vehicle on the common sector which was within the Mysore District. His route automatically steel pro tanto cut down to only that portion which lay outside the Mysore District. Even before the introduction of the definition of route in sec. 2(28-A)) by the 1969 amendment, in Nilakanth Prasad and Others v. State of Bihar (supra), the court understood the word 'route' on practically the same lines with reference to sec. 68-C and sec. 68-F. The court sa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... posed to be run and operated by the State Transport Undertaking in relation to any area or route to the exclusion, complete or partial, of other persons or otherwise. Section 68-FF also debars the State Transport Authority and the Regional Transport Authority from granting any permit except in accordance with the provisions of the scheme. In S. Abdul Khader Saheb v. The Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal, Bangalore Ors. [1973] 1 S.C.C. 357, the court approved the view of the High Court of Karnataka that, when once on a route or a portion of the route there has been total exclusion of operation of stage carriage services by operators other than the State Transport Undertaking by virtue of a clause in an approved scheme, the authorities granting permit under Chapter IV of the Motor Vehicles Act, should refrain from granting a permit contrary to the scheme. In Mysore State Road Transport Corporation v. The Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal [1975] 1 S.C.R. 493, Beg and Chandrachud JJ, departing from the views generally taken till then, took the view that a scheme which totally excluded inter-state private operators from using any part of a notified route must make the intentio ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d the decisions of the court in Nilkanth Prasad's case (supra) and Abdul Khader's case (supra). We agree with the view taken by this court in Mysore State Road Transport Corporation v. Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal [1975] 1 S.C.R. 615, and dissent from the view taken' in Mysore State Road Transport Corporation v. The Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal [1975] S.C.R. 493. We however wish to introduce a note of caution. When preparing and publishing the scheme under s. 68-C and approving or modifying the scheme under s.68-D care must be taken to protect, as far as possible, the interest of the travelling public who could in the past travel from one point to another without having to change from one service to another enroute. This can always be done by appropriate clauses exempting operators already having permits over common sector from the scheme and by incorporating appropriate conditional clauses in the scheme to enable them to ply their vehicles over common sectors without picking up or setting down passengers on the common sectors. If such a course is not feasible the State Legislature may intervene and provide some other alternative as was done by the Uttar Prade ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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