TMI Blog1956 (9) TMI 77X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... l portion of this order relating to the relative merits of the appellant and the respondent is as follows: Applicant No. 8 (respondent) has not direct interest in this line and his headquarters is at a distance of 69 miles from Kollegal. His application is rejected. The Board is therefore compelled to consider the case of applicant No. 6 (appellant) who has four permits but has obtained the orders of the Government dated 14-6-1955 to transfer two permits to Gobald Motor Service Ltd. The Government has laid down that such a transfer is no bar and should not be penalised. Even though he has transferred his permits to another person it was contended before us that he could only have four permits without transfer as such not eligible for consideration. It was also urged before us that his act of transfer was motivated by his desire to serve the Kollegal area exclusively. In view of this and in view of the fact that the Board does not find any other operator suitable for running the service without increasing the monopoly of applicant No. 2, the Board decide to award this permit to applicant No. 6. 3. Four months' time was given to the appellant for producing the registra ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... gional Transport authority granting the temporary permit to the appellant. But that petition was dismissed on the ground that an appeal lay. Then the Government suo motu issued notice to the applicant informing him that the Government proposed to examine the legality, regularity, and propriety of the order of the Regional Transport authority granting the temporary permit to the appellant. At this stage the appellant approached this Court with a Writ Petition No. 938 of 1955, praying for the issue of a writ of prohibition restraining the Government from taking further action pursuant to the aforesaid notice. On 1-12-1955, this Court ordered rule nisi. Before the disposal of this application, the Government disposed of the main revision petition which had been preferred to them by the respondent against the order of the Central Road Traffic Board. By, their order dated 27-12-1955, they set aside both the orders of the Regional Transport authority and the Central Road Traffic Board and granted the permit to the respondent. The Government dealt with the relative claims of the appellant and the respondent thus: In its order confirming the grant made by the Regional Transport autho ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the order of the Regional Transport authority Coimbatore. granting a permit on the route Kollegal to Seggiam to Sri S. Venkatachalam Iyer be set aside as improper and the (sic) be granted to Sri P. N. Ramaswami Gounder, Proprietor, Sri Ram Transport, Satyamangalam. 8. It is to quash this order of the Government that the appellant filed W. P. No. 1 of 1956. 9. The main ground on which the order of the Government was attacked was that it was not a honest, impartial and judicial order but that it was actuated by mala fides. The appellant also attacked the reasoning of the Government which formed the basis for their decision as not being supported by the facts of the case and the policy of the Government as enunciated in orders issued by them from time to time. 10. The petition was heard by Rajagopala Aiyangar J., who held that no member of the Government who passed the order impugned, had any personal interest in that decision and that the appellant had not established that the order of the Government was vitiated by lack of bona fides. As regards the merits, the learned Judge observed that it was not the province of this Court to pronounce upon the correctness of the view o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the Governor acting with the ministers. It is obvious that there is no allegation that this entire body of individuals is interested in any manner in the respondent. During the pendency of the writ petition the appellant filed an application C.M.P. No. 357 of 1956, praying that this Court may be pleased to call for the notes of the Honourable Minister in charge of transport as well as of the department, including those of the Secretary to the department, in this matter. In the affidavit filed in support of this application, for the first time, one of the ministers was mentioned. In paragraph 2, the deponent, the appellant's son, stated that he had been given to understand that the orders passed by the Government had been passed 'on the personal intervention of the Honourable Minister for Transport who thereby has shown undue interest in the matter, obviously in order to assist the second respondent herein. 12. Paragraph 4 of that affidavit runs thus: I further state that a perusal of the notes of the Department concerned as well as of the Honourable Minister of Transport in respect of this matter would clearly prove that the Honourable Minister in Charge of Transpor ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... elationship between a member of the Tribunal and one of the parties. An obvious case is where a member of the tribunal has already taken any part in the proceeding earlier and presumably would be prejudiced in favour of, or against, one of the parties. In the case of official bias, there may be no personal ill-will; but there may be evidence of an abnormal desire to uphold a particular departmental policy, which would prevent an impartial adjudication of the dispute. It is clear that in the present case no pecuniary, or official, bias has been even suggested. There remains only personal bias. Now, it is not sufficient to merely allege facts which may throw more or less suspicion on the motives of a tribunal and ask the Court to infer personal bias. As Lord Goddard C. J. pointed out in a recent case R. v. Nailsworth Licensing JJ., 1953 2 All ER 652 at page 654 (C): Objection cannot be taken to everything which might raise a suspicion in somebody's mind -- as Day J. said in R v. Taylor, etc., JJ. and Laidler ex p. Vogwill, (1898) 14 TLR 185 (D), 'anything at any time which could make fools suspect.' It is not something which raises doubt in somebody's mind that ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... de orders of such bodies. This is exactly what Harries C. J., said in Sudhmdranath v. Sailendranath, AIR 1952 Cal 65 at p. 68 (F): Before a Court can hold that orders of Government are 'mala fide', facts must be established upon which the Court can hold affirmatively that an order was not honestly made or not made under a peculiar provision. It is not sufficient to place facts which raise a suspicion that the order might not have been made honestly. Vide Radha Films Ltd. v. West Bengal Board of Censors. AIR 1952 Cal 653 (G), per Bose J. Though we heard arguments at length on the merits, we are convinced that there is no legitimate ground for interference with the impugned order of the Government. There is no question of lack of jurisdiction. The Government certainly had the power to examine the concerned records and arrive at a conclusion whether the orders of the Regional Transport authority and the Central Road Traffic Board are in any manner illegal, irregular or improper. The scope of the power or interference with an order of the State Government passed under S. '64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act has been authoritatively laid down by the Supreme Court in their rec ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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