TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1961 (12) TMI 103
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....1, the Rajya Transport, Bihar, filed objections against the renewal of the permits. In Civil Appeals Nos. 534 and 539 of 1961, no objections were filed. The route, Gaya to Khijirsarai, which may be called conveniently route 'AB' formed part of routes, on which the appellants were operating and in respect of which they had asked for renewal of their permits. The south Bihar Regional Transport Authority, however, renewed the permits of the appellants, holding that route 'AB' was different from the routes, for which renewal was demanded. 2. Against the orders of the Regional Transport Authority, appeals were filed by the Rajya Transport, Bihar in all the cases, that is to say, in those cases in which the Rajya Transport, Bihar, had objected, and those in which it had not objected. While these appeals were pending, the State of Bihar, acting under s. 3 of the Road Transport Corporations Act, 1950 (64 of 1950) notified on April 20, 1959 as follows : "No. R.T. Cor. 1/59-3090 - In exercise of the powers conferred by section 3 of the Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950 (LXIV of 1950), the Governor of Bihar is pleased to establish with effect from the 1st May, 1959 ....
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....e Regional Transport Authority at the instance of the Rajya Transport in those cases, where the Rajya Transport had not filed objections under the Motor Vehicles Act, the High Court held that it was not necessary to express an opinion on the correctness of the argument, because the Regional Transport Authority was not competent to grant a renewal, inasmuch as such a grant was a direct violation of the scheme approved by the State Government and published in the Official Gazette. On the merits, the High Court was of opinion that under s. 68F(2)(c)(iii), the Regional Transport Authority could curtail the length of the route covered by the permit, and exclude the portion, which overlapped a notified route. The present appeals have been filed against the order of the High Court, with the special leave of this Court. 5. These appeals thus fall into two groups. In one group are Civil Appeals Nos. 534 and 539 of 1961 and in the other are Civil Appeals Nos. 535 to 538 of 1961. In the former, the grant of renewal of the permits has been made without any objection, and in the latter, in spite of the objections filed by the Rajya Transport. The competency of the appeals before the Appeal Boa....
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.... the conclusion that it should not interfere, in its discretionary powers under Arts. 226 and 227, with the order of the Appeal Board, because even if the appeal for some reason was incompetent, the Appeal Board had the record before it, and gave effect to the correct legal position arising from a notified scheme. The same view was expressed also in Samarth Transport Co. v. Regional Transport Authority, Nagpur [1961]1SCR631 . In our opinion, we should not interfere on this ground either. In this connection, the difference between the two sets of cases arising from the fact whether the Rajya Transport Bihar, had objected or not, completely disappears. 8. We are now concerned with the merits of the contention that where the scheme notifies, as a route, a part of a larger route operated by a private operator, the two routes must be regarded as different, and the private operator cannot be prevented from running his omnibuses on that portion of his route which is a different route, although notified. Reliance is placed upon a decision of the Privy Council in Kelani Valley Motor Transit Co., Ltd., v. Colombo-Ratnapura Omnibus Co., Ltd. [1946] A.C. 338. There, the Privy Council was conc....
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.... "If 'route' has the same meaning as 'highway' in the Ordinance this argument must prevail, since admittedly and omnibus running on the highway from Panadura to Badulla will pass over the whole of the highway between Colombo and Ratnapura, but in their Lordships' opinion it is impossible to say that 'route' and 'highway' in the two Ordinances are synonymous terms ............... A 'highway' is the physical track along which an omnibus runs, whilst a 'route' appears to their Lordships to be an abstract conception of a line of travel between one terminus and another, and to be something distinct from the highway traversed." 10. This distinction between "route" and "road" is relied upon by the appellants to show that the notified route, which we have called 'AB' was a different route from the routes for which renewal of permits was demanded, even though route 'AB' might have been a portion of the "road" traversed by the omnibuses of the appellants plying on their "routes." The distinction made by the Privy Council is right; but it was made with reference to the words....