Revisional power on grounds of propriety allows merits-based transport permit review, and certiorari will not lie absent patent error.

Section 64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 was construed as conferring wide revisional power on the State Government to examine legality, regularity and propriety of subordinate transport orders. Propriety was held to include a merits-based assessment of whether, in the statutory scheme and public interest, the permit should be granted to the applicant with better operational facilities, even if the subordinate authorities had taken a different view. The provision was also upheld as valid, and no patent error or excess of jurisdiction was shown to justify certiorari under article 226.

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Issues: (i) Whether the State Government could exercise revisional power under section 64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 on the ground that the order of the subordinate transport authorities was improper. (ii) Whether the State Government's order was liable to be quashed in certiorari on the ground of excess of jurisdiction or error on the face of the record, and whether section 64-A was invalid.

Issue (i): Whether the State Government could exercise revisional power under section 64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 on the ground that the order of the subordinate transport authorities was improper.

Analysis: Section 64-A empowered the State Government to call for records of an order passed by a subordinate authority for satisfying itself as to its legality, regularity or propriety and to pass such order as it thought fit. The question of propriety was not confined to correcting only a plainly wrong order; it included whether, on the materials before it, the order was fit or appropriate in the statutory sense. In the scheme of the Act, the public interest and the advantages of the proposed service were dominant considerations in grant of permits. The Government was therefore entitled to examine whether the permit should go to the applicant with better facilities for operation, even though the subordinate authorities had taken a different view.

Conclusion: The State Government was competent to interfere under section 64-A on the ground of impropriety, and its revisional action was not outside jurisdiction.

Issue (ii): Whether the State Government's order was liable to be quashed in certiorari on the ground of excess of jurisdiction or error on the face of the record, and whether section 64-A was invalid.

Analysis: The existence of orders by the subordinate authorities satisfied any preliminary requirement for invoking section 64-A. The Government was deciding the very issue entrusted to it by the statute, not a collateral fact determining jurisdiction. No patent error on the face of the record was shown, and the affidavit relied upon did not establish that the Government had declined to consider relevant factors. The validity of section 64-A was upheld as a competent and reasonable legislative provision consistent with the scheme of transport control under the Act. In these circumstances, the High Court was not justified in interfering under article 226.

Conclusion: The order was not liable to be quashed in certiorari, and section 64-A was valid.

Final Conclusion: The statutory power of revision under section 64-A was wide enough to permit interference on grounds of impropriety in the public interest, and the impugned governmental order stood beyond interference under article 226.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute authorises revision on the ground of legality, regularity or propriety, the revisional authority may reappraise the materials and decide which course better serves the statutory objects, and such a merits-based determination is not open to certiorari merely because another view is possible.

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