TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1963 (2) TMI 59
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....ersons applied for the permit. The Regional Transport Authority, adopting the marking system prescribed in' G.O. Ms. No. 1298 (Home) dated April 28,1956, awarded marks to different applicants : the appellant of the highest number of Marks, viz., 7, and the first respondent got only 4 1/4 marks, with the result the appellant was preferred to the respondent and a permit was issued to him. It is not necessary to notice the marks secured by the other applicants before the Regional Transport Authority, for they are not before us. Total of the said marks secured by each of the said two parties was arrived at by gadding the marks given under the following heads: Viable Unit Work shop Residence- Experience Special circumstances Total 1 2 3 4 5 K.M.S 4 1 1 1/2 1/4 7 S.R.V.S 1 1 1 1 1/4 4 It would be seen from the said table of marks that if the 4 marks secured by the appellant under the first column "Viable Unit" were excluded from his total, he would have got only a total of 3 marks under the remaining heads and the first respondent would have got a total of 41 marks under the said heads. Under the said G.O., as interpreted by this Court, the marks un....
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....s expressed by the learned judge in a different way thus: It............ in regard to residential qualification, it (the Appellate Tribunal) declined to consider whether the office workshop at Mannargudi are sufficient to entitle the petitioner to any marks under head for the mere reason that it was a branch of a branch office." He held that the said refusal was an error apparent on the face of the record; and he accordingly quashed the order and at the same time indicated that the result 'was that the State Transport Appellate Tribunal would have to dispose of the appeal afresh. The Letters Patent appeal filed by the appellant was heard by a division Bench consisting of Anantanarayanan and Venkatadri, jj. The learned judges dismissed the appeal and the reason of their decision is found in the following remarks "In essence, the judgment really proceeds on the basis that with regard to the claim of the respondent to some valuation under Col. 3, arising from the existence of an alleged branch office at Mannargudi there has been no judicial disposal of the claim." They also observed "The Tribunal is, of course, at liberty to adopt its own criteria for the....
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....47 of the said Act. The Government, in exercise its powers under s. 43 of the said Act, gave administrative directions embodying some principles for enabling the Tribunal to come to a conclusion on the said point. The Tribunal had jurisdiction to decide the said question on the basis of the principles so laid down or dehors them. In either view, it only decides the said question. The first respondent raised before the Tribunal that public interest would be better served if a permit was issued to it as it had a well equipped branch office at Mannargudi. The said question was relevant. in an inquiry under s. 47 of the said Act, whether the Tribunal followed the instructions given by the Government or ignored them. In coming to a conclusion on the said question, the Tribunal made a clear error of law inasmuch as it held that in the case of the first respondent, as it had a branch at Kumbakonam, its other branch at Mannargudi should be ignored. This, the learned counsel contends, is an error apparent on the face of the record. He further contends that the scope of an inquiry under Art. 226 'is wide and that it enables the court to issue an appropriate direction even in a case of an....
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.... , Satyanarayan v. Mallikarjun [1960] 1 S.C.R. Shri Ambica Mills Co. v. S. B. Bhutt ) [1961] 3 S.C.R. 920 and in Provincial Transport Services v. State Industrial Court, Nagpur [1963] 3 S.C.R. 650. But the more difficult question is, what is the precise meaning of the expression "'manifest error Apparent on the face of the proceedings ?" Venkatarama Ayyar, J., attempted to define the said expression in Hari Vishnu Kamath's Case [1955] 1 S.C.R. 1104,1121, 1123 thus "Mr. Pathak for the first respondent contended on the strength of certain observations of Chagla, C. J., in Botuk K. Vyas v. Surat Municipality [1958] S.C.R. 1240 , that no error could be said to be apparent on the face of the record if it was not self evident, and if it required an examination or argument to establish it. This test might afford a satisfactory basis for decision in the majority of cases. But there must be cases in which even this test might break down, because judicial opinions also differ, and an error that might be considered by one judge as self-evident might not be so considered by another. The fact is that what is an error apparent on the face of the record cannot be defined ....
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.... may break, for what is complex to one judicial mind may be clear and obvious to another : it depends upon the equipment of a particular judge. In the ultimate analysis the said concept is comprised of many imponderables : it is not capable of precise definition, as no objective criterion can be laid down, the apparent nature of the error, to a large extent, being dependent upon the subjective element. So too, in some cases the boundary between error of law and error of fact is rather thin. A tribunal may hold that 500 multiplied by 10,000 is 5 lakhs (instead of 50 lakhs); another tribunal may hold that a particular claim is barred by limitation by calculating the period of time from 1956 instead of 1961 ; and a third tribunal may make an obvious error deciding a mixed question of fact and law. The question whether the said errors are errors of law or fact cannot be posited on a priori reasoning., but falls to be decided in each case. We do not,, therefore, propose to define with any precision the concept of "error of law apparent on the face of the record"; but it should be left, as it has always been done, to be decided in each case. The only question therefore, is whe....
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....h. The Government also under s. 43A may issue instructions to the Regional Transport Authority that the existence of an office of a particular applicant on the route would be in the interests of the public and, therefore, the said applicant should be given a preferential treatment if other things are equal. The issue of such an instruction only emphasizes a relevant fact which an authority has to take into consideration even if such an instruction was not given. But if the Authority under a manifest error of law ignores the said relevant consideration, it not only disobeys the administrative directions given by the Government, but also transgresses the provisions of s. 47 of the Act. The disobedience of the instructions which are administrative in nature may not afford a cause of action to an aggrieved party, but the transgression of the statutory law certainly does. What is the position in the present. case ? The Government issued G. O. No. 1298 (Home), dated April 28, 1956, introducing a marking system for assessing the merits of applicants for stage carriage permits. Column 3 reads thus "Location of residence or place of business of the applicant on the route or at the te....
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....ror apparent on the face of the record. On that erroneous view, the Appellate Tribunal did Dot decide the relevant question raised, namely, whether the respondent has any such office at mannargudi. Both Ramachandra Iyer, J., at the first instance, and Anantanarayanan and Venkatadri, jj., in 'appeal, rightly pointed out this error. As this is an error apparent on the face of the record, they quashed the order of the Appellate Tribunal and left the question open for decision by it. In our view, the conclusion arrived at by the High Court is correct. It remains only to notice the decisions on which strong reliance is placed by learned counsel for the appellant in support of his contention. In M/s. Raman and Raman Ltd. v. The State of Madras [1959] Supp. 2 S.C.R. 227.,the relevant facts were : the appellant and the 4th respondent therein, along with others, were applicants for a stage carriage permit. The Regional Transport Authority granted the permit to the appellant on the basis of instructions issued by the State Government under s. 43A of the Motor Vehicles Act; on appeal, the Central Road Traffic Board set aside that order on the footing of fresh instructions issued by the ....
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....and Gopalan Nair were not entitled to claim the benefit of the marks under Col. 1, as they had secured less marks than respondents 3 and 4 under Cols. 3 to 5, for they held, on a fair obstruction of the said G.O., that it was only when the marks obtained by applicants under Cols. 2 to 5 were equal, recourse could be had to 'Col. 1. On that basis, the Appellate Tribunal quashed the order of the Regional Transport Authority and gave the permits to respondents 3 and 4. The appellant challenged the said order by an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution for a writ of certiorari in the High Court of Madras. Rajagopalan, J., dismissed the application on two grounds, namely, (1) that the construction of the G.O. was not shown to be wrong and (2) that even if the G. O. was misconstrued, it would not justify the issue of a writ of certiorari, as the said G. O. embodied only administrative directions. The Letters Patent Appeal filed against the said order was dismissed. The appeal filed to this Court was also dismissed. This Court followed the decision in M/s. Raman and Raman Ltd. v. The State of Madras )[1959] Supp. 2 S.C.R. 227, and held that the -instructions given under s. 43....
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....there was whether the appellant was entitled to marks under Col. 2 for repair and maintenance, facilities at Dharapuram- the Appellate Tribunal found that he had such facilities. The appellant filed a writ in the High Court and the learned single judge thought that some mistakes had been committed by the Appellate Tribunal in the allotment of marks and that it acted in contravention of the directions given by the Government under the said G. O., but dismiss the petition on the ground that, as the said instructions are Only executive directions, their contravention did not confer any right on the parties before the tribunal. On Letters Patent Appeal a Division Bench of that Court set aside that order on the ground that the Appellate Tribunal had taken into consideration the following two irrelevant considerations: (i) the appellant's claim should suffer because of the punishment for his past misconduct, and (ii) the -third respondent being a small operator, he would be entitled to better Consideration than the appellant who was a monopolist. On appeal, this court followed the decision in M/s. Raman and Raman Ltd. v. The State of Madras (1) and Abdullah Rowther v. The State Trans....