TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (12) TMI 1436
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....orality; and further epitomises how statutory Corporations can cultivate the proclivity to give indecent burial to their interests, which is fundamentally collective interest that the Corporations are duty bound to protect, preserve and assert for. That apart, this bunch also exposes, as we have painfully penned, how the State, the protector of the interest of the citizens, has constantly maintained sphinx-like silence and also for some unfathomable reason, dexterously ignored the financial misdeeds as a colossal mute spectator. It seems all have either eloquently or silently competed with each other to write the epitaph of law. But, a pregnant one, there is a watch-dog, the Petitioner in Writ Petition(C) No. 223/2009, despite being wedded to individual interest, thought it apposite to uncurtain the machinations adopted by the Respondent Nos. 3 to 8 and the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Chennai) Ltd. (MTCL) which had filed SLP(C) No. 16908/2006 against K.S. Kumar Raja and Anr. and later on chose not to press the same. The painfully unusual thing, has been allowed to happen. 3. The litigation has a history. The MTCL issued advertisements for erection and maintenance of certai....
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....ended before the High Court that it was obligation of the Corporation to provide bus shelters for the convenience of commuters. It was averred that initially various bus stops were identified and allotted on first come, first serve basis and consequently for the successful tenderer, permission was also granted to erect shelters under the royalty scheme. The writ Petitioner had submitted an application to the Respondent Corporation for allotment of specified location for establishment of shelters but the same did not evoke any response. The reminders also fell on deaf ears. Being aggrieved by the said non-response, he had approached the High Court in W.P. No. 26890/2003 seeking a direction to the Corporation to consider his representation and the High Court had directed the Corporation to pass appropriate orders on the representation within a specific period. Pursuant to the order passed by the High Court, the Corporation on 7.11.2003 informed him that the construction and maintenance of a shelter in Chennai city was being dealt by the MTCL. At that juncture, MTCL invited tenders which constrained him to file the writ petition assailing the said order. 5. It was contended before th....
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.... to locate bus shelters and maintain the same and in such an event, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation would identify the locations and erect bus shelters on the basis of the terms and conditions imposed by the Council. (iv) The above exercise, viz., to identify the location and advertise on its own or empower the Metropolitan Transport Corporation to erect the bus shelters, shall be implemented by the Corporation, on or before the end of December 2006. (v) Till such time, the Petitioners viz., the sponsors are entitled to continue their activities in relation to the shelters established, subject to payment of Rs. 49,500/- per shelter for one module of 20 x 4 size shelters and a sum of Rs. 99,000/- for the second module consists of 40 x 4 shelters. (vi) The above said amount shall be paid to the Corporation of Chennai entirely in advance along with a copy of this order. On such payment, the Commissioner, Corporation of Chennai shall allow the Petitioner to continue their business till the end of December 2006. (vii) It is made clear that the above arrangement is basically made only in the interest of the commuters as they must be provided with the shelter and removal of....
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....hereof are filed in the form of Memo, annexed to the said applications, we disposed of both these Special Leave Petitions by the following order. The Memos signed by the Petitioner and the Respondent Metropolitan Transport Corporation duly supported by the affidavit of the Petitioner and the affidavit of Shri Ramasubramaniam, Managing Director of Metropolitan Transport Corporation, filed in the connected SLP(C) No. 16908 of 2006, are taken on record and these Special Leave Petitions are disposed of in terms of the said memos. The parties shall bear their own costs in these proceedings. SLP (C) No. 16908/06 filed by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai, Limited, is also taken up for consideration along with I.A. No. 2/08 filed therein. In view of the Order passed hereinabove in the earlier two Special Leave Petitions, no orders are necessary in this Special Leave Petition. The Special Leave Petition is disposed of accordingly and the question of law raised in the petition is left open for decision in appropriate proceeding. 8. Be it noted, to the said settlement, Chennai Municipal Corporation was not a party. It needs no Solomon's wisdom that by such a settleme....
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....rs of International standard for the benefit of the waiting bus passengers and the concessionaire agrees to convert the existing bus shelters of International standard where there is no bus shelters. The concessionaire agrees to erect the above bus shelters of International standard at its own cost and in return agrees to pay the royalty amount at the rates hereinafter appearing. xxx The concessionaire agrees to buy royalty amount to MTCL during the period of 12 years. The royalty amount shall be paid at the rate of Rs. 30000/- per year per International Standard Bus Shelter with an escalation of 10% once in every three years over the previous rate. The period of agreements as well as the royalty payment starts from 01.09.2008. xxx This agreement is valid for 12 years from 01.09.2008 with further extension on condition that the entire 500 bus shelters, as per list, would be converted into International Standard Bus Shelters with advertisement space not exceeding 30 sq. mtrs per shelter, within 12 months from 01.09.2008. 10. As the factual matrix undrape, M/s. Nova Ads, filed the Writ Petition(Civil) No. 223/2009 for recall of the order passed by this Court on many a ground....
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....hout calling for tenders. These facts are not only bewildering, but really shocking. 12. In this background, the seminal question that is required to be addressed first is whether under the Act it is the Corporation or the MTCL has the authority to deal with bus shelters for passengers. Mr. C.A. Sundaram, Mr. V. Giri and Mr. Ravindra Srivastava, learned senior Counsel appearing for various parties in different appeals would contend that the High Court has fallen into error in its appreciation of the provisions of the Act and has erroneously come to hold that Corporation has the authority to exercise the powers for providing shelters to the passengers and to deal with the shelters for any commercial venture and the said transport undertakings are to be controlled and managed by the Corporation and the MTCL has no authority to grant permission for establishing the bus shelters or to deal with them in any manner. It is further urged by them that the High Court has failed to take note of the fact that at the time the State Government had conferred the power on MTCL to deal with the matter, the Corporation was under supersession and hence, the State Government had the authority to act ....
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....rk, tunnel, culvert, or tree from the control of the corporation. 15. From the aforesaid provisions, it is quite vivid that all public streets and their appurtenances which are not reserved under the control of the Central or State Government shall vest in the Corporation. Thus the reservation as engrafted under the provision is only meant for the Central Government or the State Government. Sub-section 2 of Section 203 enables the State Government to issue a notification withdrawing any street, drain, drainage, tunnel, culvert or tree from the control of the Corporation. It is submitted by Mr. Rohtagi that Section 203(1) of the Act, barring certain streets, vests everything in the Corporation. The State Government has been conferred the power by the legislature to withdraw certain streets and other things from the control of the Corporation, for the legislature in its wisdom has thought it appropriate to carve out an exception from Section 203(1) and enabled the State to deal with it after issue of a notification. As we perceive the said provision, public streets which have been vested in the Corporation, unless it is reserved for the Central Government or the State Government or ....
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....ce the same: 223-A. Power of Council to setup hoardings and levy fees - Subject to the provisions of the Madras Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act, 1959 (II of 1959) and Section 129-A to 129-F of this Act, the commissioner may, with the sanction of the council, set up, for the exhibition of advertisements, hoardings, erections or other things in suitable place owned by, or vested in the corporation and may permit any person to use any such hoardings, erection or thing on payment of such fee as may be prescribed by Regulations made by the council in this behalf. Explanation I. - For the purpose of Section 129-D and 129-E the person who has been permitted to use any hoarding, erection or thing under this Section shall be in addition to the advertisements Taxes payable by him Under Section 129-A or advertisements exhibited by him on such hoarding, executing or thing. Explanation II. - For the removal of doubts, it is hereby declared that any fee payable by any person to use any hoarding, erection or thing under this Section shall be deemed to be the owner or the person in occupation of such hoarding, erection or thing. 20. Laying emphasis upon the aforesaid quoted pr....
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....said definition indubitably would include a bus. Keeping the same in view, we are to examine Section 285-A which has been emphasised by the learned Counsel for the parties. The said provision reads as follows: 285-A - Prohibition of use of public place or sides of public street as cart-stand etc. - Where the commissioner has provided a public landing place, halting place, cart-stand, cattle-shed, or cow-house, he may prohibit the use for the same purpose by any person within such distance thereof as may be determined by the standing committee of any public place or the sides of any public street: Provided that nothing contained in this section shall be deemed to authorise the commissioner to prohibit the use of any place in the city by the State Government as a stand solely for motor vehicles belonging to the Transport Department of the State Government. 23. Section 285-B deals with recovery of cart-stand fees, etc. On a scrutiny of the said provision, it is limpid that the Commissioner of the Corporation has the power to take appropriate action for the purpose of recovery, if the fee leviable under Sub-section (1) of Section 285-B is not paid. Section 285-C deals with licence....
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....7. Learned Counsel appearing for the Appellants would contend that MTCL is a State undertaking and comes under the Transport Department. On a reading of the said proviso, it is graphically clear that the Commissioner's power cannot be extended to prohibit the use of any place in the city by the State Government as a stand solely for motor vehicles belonging to the Transport Department. It is urged by the learned Counsel for the Appellants that the vehicles in question belong to the State undertakings and thereby to the Transport Department and, therefore, the Commissioner has no role. On a first blush, the aforesaid submission looks slightly attractive, but on a studied scrutiny it has to pale into insignificance. We are inclined to think so as Section 285 uses the term "cart-stand" and by way of amendment, it has been specified that a cart-stand would be 'stand' for a carriage including motor vehicles within the meaning of 1939 Act. The proviso to Section 285-A also uses the phraseology "stand" solely for the "motor vehicles". The words in a statute have to be construed in their grammatical sense. Reasonableness or otherwise becomes material only when the statute is no....
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....ide to their meaning. 29. We have referred to the aforesaid authorities only to highlight that the stand for motor vehicles in its grammatical connotation are quite explicit and conveys a definite meaning. It basically means making provisions for stands for motor vehicle. The word used in Section 285 is cart-stand. The explanation clearly states that the cart-stand, for the purposes of this Act, would include motor vehicles. The Corporation has been authorised by the Act to make provisions for cart-stands. When one thinks of stand for motor vehicles, it only means, the parking place. That is the popular meaning of the word. The "stand", if one would like to conceive that it would include shelters for passengers, it will be a grossly unreasonable interpretation. It has to be given the common parlance meaning. While dealing with the concept of popular sense, a two-Judge Bench of this Court in The Commissioner of Sales Tax, Madhya Pradesh, Indore v. Jaswant Singh Charan Singh AIR 1967 SC 1454, while dealing with the said facet has observed thus: This rule was stated as early as 1831 by Lord Tenterdan in Attorney-General v. Winstanley (1831) 2 D and Cl. 302. Similarly, in Grenfell v....
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....ords has to be avoided. As stated by the Privy Council in Crawford v. Spooner (1846) 6 Moore PC 1 "we cannot aid the legislature's defective phrasing of an Act, we cannot add or mend and, by construction make up deficiencies which are left there". In case of an ordinary word there should be no attempt to substitute or paraphrase of general application. Attention should be confined to what is necessary for deciding the particular case. This principle is too well settled and reference to a few decisions of this Court would suffice. (See: Gwalior Rayons Silk Mfg. (Wvg.) Co. Ltd. v. Custodian of Vested Forests (1990) Supp SCC 785, Union of India v. Deoki Nandan Aggarwal (1992) SCC (L and S) 248, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India v. Price Waterhouse (1997) 6 SCC 312 and Harbhajan Singh v. Press Council of India (2002) 3 SCC 722.) 31. If the provisions which we have referred to hereinabove are understood on the touchstone of aforesaid principles pertaining to statutory interpretation, there remains no iota of doubt that the legislature has conferred power on the Corporation to take necessary action for public convenience and make provisions for the cart-stand which include....
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.... the stand for motor vehicles and cannot include bus shelters. 33. At this juncture, we must take note of the submission, though feebly made, by the learned Counsel for the Appellants that the word 'stand' even if construed as a stand equivalent to cart-stand, would mean stand for motor vehicles only and not include bus shelters and, therefore, the Corporation would not have the authority but the State Government will have the power. The said submission has no legs to stand upon and hence, is hereby rejected. It is for the reason that the Corporation has to look after the convenience of the people as enshrined Under Section 204 of the Act. The cumulative reading of the provisions and on proper understanding of the scheme of the Act, there remains no trace of a doubt that the Corporation has the authority to deal with the 'stands' and have the obligation to control and manage the bus shelters for public convenience. It is within the authority of the Corporation to think of appropriate management. 34. The main thrust of argument of the learned Counsel for the Appellants is that the State Government has given the charge and the responsibility to the MTCL to construct....
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....place" for the motor vehicle. In common parlance, the "stand" and "shelter for passengers" are quite different. They cannot be attributed the same meaning. The State Government could have issued a notification specifying certain places as stands for motor vehicles of the Transport Department which may include State transport undertakings i.e. MTCL, but the State Government, as we understand the scheme of the Act, has no statutory authority to issue a notification allowing the State transport undertakings to provide shelters for passengers. It is well settled in law that neither the Rule nor a Regulation nor a Notification can transgress the postulates engrafted under the Act. In General Officer Commanding-in-Chief v. Dr. Subhash Chandra Yadav (1988) 2 SCC 351, it has been held that: ... before a rule can have the effect of a statutory provision, two conditions must be fulfilled, namely (1) it must conform to the provisions of the statute under which it is framed; and (2) it must also come within the scope and purview of the rule making power of the authority framing the rule. If either of these two conditions is not fulfilled, the rule so framed would be void. 37. In B.K. Garad ....
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....hough, in cases of contract between parties, equity will often relieve against penalties and forfeitures, where compensation can be granted, relief can never be given against the provisions of a statute. 43. In P.M. Latha and Anr. v. State of Kerala and Ors. (2003) 3 SCC 541, it has been opined: Equity and law are twin brothers and law should be applied and interpreted equitably but equity cannot override written or settled law.... 44. In Raghunath Raj Bareja and Anr. v. Punjab National Bank and Ors. (2007) 2 SCC 230, the Court observed that it is well settled that when there is a conflict between law and equity, it is the law which has to prevail. The Court further ruled that equity can supplement the law, but it cannot supplant or override it. In this context, reliance was also placed upon Madamanchi Ramappa v. Muthaluru Bojjappa AIR 1963 SC 1633, Laxminarayan R. Bhattad v. State of Maharashtra(2003) 5 SCC 413, Nasiruddin v. Sita Ram Agarwal (2003) 2 SCC 577, E. Palanisamy v. Palanisamy (2003) 1 SCC 123, India House v. Kishan N. Lalwani (2003) 9 SCC 393. 45. In the case at hand, as we have concluded that it is the Corporation who has the authority to deal with the bus shelte....
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....ch cannot be countenanced. 47. The claim of equity has also to be adjudged on the bedrock of truth. In Dalip Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. (2010) 2 SCC 114, the Court has observed thus: ...Truth constituted an integral part of the justice-delivery system which was in vogue in the pre-Independence era and the people used to feel proud to tell truth in the courts irrespective of the consequences. However, post-Independence period has seen drastic changes in our value system. The materialism has overshadowed the old ethos and the quest for personal gain has become so intense that those involved in litigation do not hesitate to take shelter of falsehood, misrepresentation and suppression of facts in the court proceedings. In the last 40 years, a new creed of litigants has cropped up. Those who belong to this creed do not have any respect for truth. They shamelessly resort to falsehood and unethical means for achieving their goals. In order to meet the challenge posed by this new creed of litigants, the courts have, from time to time, evolved new rules and it is now well established that a litigant, who attempts to pollute the stream of justice or who touches the pure fo....
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....red, it really paved the path of deviance. The Appellants could not have legitimately entered into a settlement with the MTCL. It could not have entered into an agreement with the State undertaking. This was a clear deceit on the part of the Appellants in collusion with the MTCL to frustrate the legal rights of the Corporation. It is a deception intended to get an advantage. It is another matter that the Corporation did not wake up to save its own interest. The writ Petitioner, for his own individual interest, made a prayer to recall of the order and thereafter, as we find, the Corporation has woken from slumber. Be that as it may, it was a loss to the Corporation and the Corporation is a public body and it is expected to protect and handle its finances for the benefit of the persons who are covered under the Act. The conduct of the Appellants, from any angle, is absolutely depreciable. 52. Another aspect to be taken note of. The agreement has been entered into by the Appellants with the MTCL for a period of 12 years. Despite the direction of the High Court that the Commissioner of Corporation of Chennai shall call for tenders from intending sponsors. True it is, the High Court ha....
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....cticed by the Appellants in collusion with MTCL and the authorities of the MTCL had acted with full knowledge against the statute and against the interest of the Corporation. The beneficiaries are the Appellants. As far as the MTCL functionaries are concerned, we do not intend to say anything as we have been apprised by Mr. Subramonium Prasad, learned AAG for the State of Tamil Nadu that certain proceedings are pending against the functionaries of the MTCL. We will be failing in our duty if we do not take note of the fact that the Corporation should have been vigilant to protect its own interests. However, as is perceived, it did not wake up for long. The State remained a silent spectator to all that was going on. Under these circumstances, prayer has been made on behalf of the Appellants to show equity and allow them to continue at least for two years. Needless to emphasise, it has been canvassed as an alternative submission. The said alternative submission does not deserve consideration. To think of acceptation of such a submission, we will be adding a premium to the Appellants who have crucified the law and played possum of the existence of the judgment of the High Court and in ....