Notified transport scheme bars private renewal over overlapping route portions; permit curtailment is required to protect State undertaking rights.

A notified transport scheme under Chapter IVA excludes private operation over the notified route, including any overlapping portion of an existing private route, and the transport authority must curtail permits to give effect to that exclusion. The Regional Transport Authority had no jurisdiction to renew permits for operation over the notified route once it vested in the State undertaking. A technical objection to the competence of the appeals did not prevent the Appeal Board from correcting an improper or illegal order on the record before it. Private operators were therefore not entitled to renewal over the notified portions of their routes.

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Issues: (i) Whether the Appeal Board could sustain interference with the renewal orders notwithstanding objections as to the competency of the appeals. (ii) Whether private operators could claim renewal over portions of their routes covered by a notified scheme in favour of the State transport undertaking.

Issue (i): Whether the Appeal Board could sustain interference with the renewal orders notwithstanding objections as to the competency of the appeals.

Analysis: The notified scheme had already vested the concerned route in the State transport undertaking. In that setting, the Regional Transport Authority had no jurisdiction to renew permits so as to permit operation over the notified route. Even if the appeals before the Appeal Board suffered from a technical defect, the Board had the record before it and could correct an improper or illegal order under its revisional powers. The competence objection therefore did not affect the validity of the Board's action.

Conclusion: The objection to the competency of the appeals failed.

Issue (ii): Whether private operators could claim renewal over portions of their routes covered by a notified scheme in favour of the State transport undertaking.

Analysis: Under the Motor Vehicles Act, a notified scheme may cover a route, an area, or a portion of either, and the Regional Transport Authority may curtail an existing permit so far as it relates to the notified route. The distinction between a notional route and the physical road traversed cannot defeat the scheme. Where a portion of a private operator's route overlaps a notified route, that overlapping portion stands excluded from private operation and cannot be treated as a separate surviving route for renewal purposes.

Conclusion: The private operators were not entitled to renewal over the notified portions of their routes.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the orders refusing renewal did not succeed, and the appeals were dismissed.

Ratio Decidendi: A notified transport scheme under Chapter IVA excludes private operation over the notified route or the overlapping portion of an existing route, and the transport authority must give effect to that exclusion by curtailing the permit accordingly.

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