TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1985 (10) TMI 272
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....er than on the provisions of the statute, as we shall presently show. We will mention here the facts of a few cases which are illustrative of the question raised. In Civil Appeal No. 684 of 1981, the appellants hold a stae carriage permit over the route Meerut to Ambala via Bamanheri, Deoband, Gagalheri and Saharanpur. One part of the route, namely Meerut to Bamanheri is also part of a nationalised route Meerut- Bamanheri-Hardwar while yet another part of the route, namely, Gagalheri to Saharanpur is part of another nationalised route Hardwar-Dehradun-Gagalheri Saharanpur. The question has arisen whether the petitioners may be allowed to ply their stage carriage over the whole of the route Meerut-Bamanheri-Deoband-Gagalheri-Saharanpur-Ambala provided that they observe 'corridor restrictions', that is, provided they do not pick up or set down any passengers between Meerut and Bamanheri and between Gagalheri and Saharanpur In Civil Appeal Nos. 1909 and 1910 of 1981, the appellants were applicants for the grant of stage carriage permits over the route Etah- Dhumari Sidhupur-Patiyali. The route Etah-Dhumari-Daryaganj- Qaimganh had already been notified under Chapter IV-A of th....
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....t of his right of passage over a highway, a member of the public was entitled to ply motor vehicles for pleasure or pastime or for the purpose of trade and business, subject, of course, to permissible control and regulation by the State, Saghir Ahmed v. State of U.P., [1955] 1 S.C.R. 707. Under Article 19 (6) (ii) of the Constitution, the State can make a law relating to the carrying on by the State or by a Corporation, owned or controlled by the State of any particular business, industry or service whether to the exclusion, complete or partial, of citizens or otherwise. The law could provide for carrying on a service to the total exclusion of all the citizens; lt may exclude some of the citizens only; it may do business in the entire State or a portion of the State, in a specified route or part thereof. The word 'service' has been construed to be wide enough to take in not only the general motor service, but also the species of motor service. There are no limitations on the States power to make laws conferring monopoly on it in respect of an area, and person or persons to be excluded, Kondala Rao v. A.P.. State Road Transport Corporation, A.I.R. [1961] S.C. 82. All this is....
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....ion of sec. 68-C, it is desirable to extract the same. It is as follows : 68-C. Where any State Transport Undertaking is of opinion that for the purpose of providing an efficient, adequate, economical and properly coordinated road transport service, it is necessary in the public interest that road transport services in general or any particular class of such service in relation to any area or route or portion thereof should be run and operated by the State Transport Undertaking, whether to the exclusion, complete or partial, of other persons or otherwise, the State Transport Undertaking may prepare a scheme giving particulars of the nature of the services proposed to be rendered, the area or route proposed to be covered and such other particulars respecting thereto as may be prescribed, and shall cause every such scheme to be published in the Official Gazette and also in h other manner as the State Government may direct. The policy of the legislature is clear from s.68-C that the State Transport Undertaking may initiate a scheme for the purpose of providing an efficient, adequate, economical and properly coordinated road transport service to be run and operated by the State Transp....
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....dertaking need not follow the procedure laid down in sec. 68-C and sec. 68-D if the previous approval of the State Government is obtained and if the scheme 18 one relating to any route or area in respect of which the road transport services are to be run and operated by the State Transport Undertaking to the complete exclusion of other persons. Section 68-E, sub-sec. 2 enables the State Government, at any time, if it considers necessary in the public interest so to do, to modify a scheme published under sec. 68-D(3) after giving an opportunity of being heard to the State Transport Undertaking and any other person who in the opinion of the State Government is likely to be affected by the proposed modification. Section 68-F(1) obliges the Regional Transport Authority or the State Transport Authority, as the case may be, to grant to the State Transport Undertaking the necessary permits on its applying for the same in pursuance of an approved scheme. The permits have to be issued notwithstanding anything to the contrary in Chapter IV. Section 68-F(l-A) oblige the State Transport Authority or the Regional Transport as the case may be, to issue temporary permits to the State Transport Un....
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....n made by A the State Transport Undertaking. Section 68-G and 68-H prescribe the principles and method of determining compensation and its payment to the holders of existing permits which cancelled or modified. Section 68-I empowers the State Government to make rules for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of the Chapter and in particular in accordance with the various matters specified in sub-sec. 2 It is thus seen that while the provisions of Chapter IV-A are devised to override the provisions of Chapter IV and it is expressly so enacted, the provisions of Chapter IVA are clear and complete regarding the manner and effect of the take over of the operation or road transport service by the State Transport Undertaking in relation to any area or route or portion thereof. While on the one hand, the paramount consideration is the public interest, the interest of the existing operators are sufficiently well- taken care of and such slight inconveniences to the travelling public as may be inevitable are sought to be reduced to a minimum. To begin with the State Transport Undertaking must think it necessary in the public interest to provide efficient, adequate, economical a....
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....tion thereof, whether to the exclusion, complete or partial of other persons or otherwise, no person other than the State Transport Undertaking may operate on the notified area or notified route except as provided in the scheme itself. A necessary consequence of these provisions is that no private operator can operate his vehicle on any part or por-ion of a notified area or notified route unless authorised so to do by the terms of the scheme itself. He may not operate on any part or portion of the notified route or area on the mere ground that the permit as originally granted to him covered the notified route or area. We are not impressed by the various submissions made on behalf of the appellants by their several counsel. The foremost argument was that based on the great inconvenience which may be caused to the travelling public if a passenger is not allowed to travel, say, straight from A to on a stage carriage, to ply which on the route A to a person X has a permit, merely because a part of the route from to somewhere between the points A and is part of a notified route. The answer to the question is that this is a factor which will necessarily be taken into consideration by the....
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....at route AB covers and includes every part of the particular highway from A to traversed by the Motor vehicle along the route. It is impossible to accept the argument that only the terminii have to be looked at and the rest of the highway ignored in order to discover a route for the purposes of the Motor Vehicles Act. Equally without substance is the plea that if an operator does not pick up or set down any passenger between the two points of the common sector he cannot be said to be plying a state carriage between these two points. The argument is entirely devoid of substance for the simple reason that the operator does charge the passenger for the distance travelled along the highway between these two points also. Another argument which was advanced and which is also lacking in substance is that a complete exclusion of private operators from the common sector would be violative of Art. 14 and that it would be ultra vires sec. 68-D. We are unable to see how either Art.14 or sec.68-D of the Motor Vehicles Act hit a scheme which provides for complete exclusion of private operators from the whole or any part of the notified area. Almost all these submissions have been considered and ....
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....in the working of Chapter IVA, because you cannot curtail the route without curtailing a portion of the road, and the ruling of the Court to which we have referred, would also show that even if the route was different, the area at least would be the same. The ruling of the Judicial Committee cannot be made applicable to the Motor Vehicles Act, particularly Chapter IV-A, where the intention is to exclude private operators completely from running over certain sectors or routes vested in State Transport Undertakings. In our opinion, there fore, the appellants were rightly held to be disentitled to run over those portions of their routes which were notified as part of the scheme. Those portions cannot be said to be different routes, but must be regarded as portions of the routes of the private operators from which the private operators stood excluded under s. 68- F(2)(c)(iii) of the Act. In Ram Sanehi Singh v. Bihar State Road Transport Corporation & ors. (supra), there was a slight note of discordance. The appellant there possessed a permit to ply a stage carriage on a rout-e which had a common sector of five miles of a notified route. On the examination of the scheme, the Court foun....
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.... route was prohibited, inter- state operators could not be debarred from plying their vehicles over the overlapping part of the inter-state route merely because of the physical fact of the overlapping of the two routes. The learned judges did not notice the earlier decisions of the court in C.P.C. Motor Service, Mysore v. The State of Mysore & Anr. (supra) and Abdul Khader v. The Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal (supra). Nilkanth Prasad's (supra) case was noticed but by-passed with the observation "whatever may be said about the correctness of the decision" etc. In Mysore State Road Transport Corporation v. Mysore State Transport Appellate Tribunal [1975] 1 S.C.R. 615, all the earlier cases were noticed and lt was held, It is, therefore apparent that where a private transport owner makes an application to operate on a route, which overlaps even a portion of the notified route i.e. where the part of the highway to be used by A the private transport owner traverses on a line on the same highway on the notified route, then that application has to be considered only in the light of the scheme as notified. If any conditions are placed then those conditions ....
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....methods of not inconveniencing through passengers but that is entirely a matter for the State Legislature, the State Government and the State Transport Undertaking. But we do wish to emphasise that good and sufficient care must be taken to see that the travelling public is not to be needlessly inconvenienced. Shri R.K. Garg urged that the provisions of Chapter IV and Chapter IV-A must be reconciled in such a manner as to allow permit holders to ply their stage carriages notwithstanding that parts of their route are also parts of notified routes. We fail to understand the argument having regard to the express legislative pronouncement in s. 68-B that the provisions of Chapter IV-A and the rules and orders made thereunder shall have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent therewith contained in Chapter IV of the Act. In one of the cases it was argued before us that though the scheme framed by the Uttar Pradesh Transport Undertaking prohibited the plying of private stage carriages on the notified part of an inter-state route within the State of Uttar Pradesh, a later Madhya Pradesh Scheme published by the Madhya Pradesh State Transport Undertaking pursuant to an inter-state agre....