Unapproved draft scheme delay can justify quashing, and dependent permit applications fall away once the scheme is set aside.

An unapproved draft scheme under the Motor Vehicles Act may be set aside where finalisation is delayed for an inordinate period without satisfactory explanation. Once the draft scheme is quashed, a permit application that exists only because of that scheme does not survive and requires no further consideration. The result is that the affected operator is relieved from the draft scheme's effect for the limited period stated, while the authority remains free to initiate a fresh scheme in accordance with law.

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Issues: (i) Whether the draft scheme published under the Motor Vehicles Act could be quashed for inordinate delay in its approval under the statutory scheme-making process; (ii) whether the permit application under the temporary permit provision survived after the draft scheme was quashed.

Issue (i): Whether the draft scheme published under the Motor Vehicles Act could be quashed for inordinate delay in its approval under the statutory scheme-making process.

Analysis: The draft scheme had been published long earlier, but it had not been approved within the time contemplated by law. No satisfactory explanation was offered for the prolonged failure to finalise the scheme. In these circumstances, the delay was treated as legally unacceptable, and the draft scheme was set aside.

Conclusion: The draft scheme was quashed.

Issue (ii): Whether the permit application under the temporary permit provision survived after the draft scheme was quashed.

Analysis: The application under the temporary permit provision arose only as a consequence of the publication of the draft scheme. Once the scheme itself was quashed, the basis for considering that application ceased to exist.

Conclusion: The application did not survive and no further consideration was required.

Final Conclusion: The judgment relieved the appellant from the effect of the unapproved draft scheme, preserved interim operating rights for the limited period stated, and left it open to the authority to initiate a fresh scheme in accordance with law.

Ratio Decidendi: An unapproved draft scheme under the Motor Vehicles Act may be quashed where there is inordinate and unexplained delay in finalisation, and any permit application dependent solely on that draft scheme falls away once the scheme is set aside.

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