BAIKUNTHA JHA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner applied for a stage carriage permit for the route Bhagalpur to Mahagama via Dacomore, Barabat, Maharanamore, Mandar Vidyapith, Sabalpur, Panjwara, Godda, Bandanwar, Barkope, Pathargama: and Mohanpun The total length of the - route is 56 miles. It has not been in dispute that portions of this route have a common road sector with two nationalised routes notified under Chapter IVA of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (Central Act 4 of 1939), hereinafter called "the Act". Such common portions are a distance of four miles from Dacoa-more to Maharanamore and that of six miles from Pathargama to Molianpur. It is also not in dispute that the scheme for the two nationalised routes did not provide for allowing any private operator to operate on the said routes or any portion thereof. The scheme as finally approved and published was in total exclusion of the private operator from the nationalised routes aforesaid or any portion thereof.

(2.) The Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (hereinafter called "the Transport Corporation") objected to the grant of the permit to the petitioner on the ground that the permit asked for could not be granted as the stage carriage could not be allowed to pass through the portions of the nationalised routes as no private operator could be allowed to ply his bus even on a portion of the road or the highway through which the nationalised routes passed. The East Bihar Regional Transport Authority, respondent No. 2, over-ruled the objection of respondent No. 4 on the ground that "the portion Dacoamore to Maharanamore and Pathargama to Mohanpurmore of small distances could perhaps be ignored for the larger good of larger number of travelling public". The matter was taken up in appeal by the Transport Corporation to the State Transport Appellate Authority, respondent No. 3. The Appeal Board of that Transport Authority allowed the appeal, upheld the objection of respondent No. 4 and set aside the order of respondent No. 2. a copy of which is Annexure 1 to the writ application. The order of the Appeal Board dated 5-7-1967 is Annexure 2. The petitioner preferred a revision under Section 64A of the Act, as it stands under the Bihar amendment, to the Transport Minister of the Government of Bihar. A copy of the application in revision is Annexure 3 to the writ application. The State Transport Minister rejected the revision by his order dated 15-1-1968 which was communicated to the petitioner under a forwarding memo dated 9-2-1968, Annexure 4. The petitioner filed this application in this Court on 17-5-1968 annexing therewith a copy of the order of the same Transport Minister dated 25-12-1967 us Annexure 5 by which under similar circumstances he had over-ruled an identical objection of the Transport Corporation and granted a permit to one Ram Sanehi Singh. Apart from the other grounds, one of the grounds of attack on the order of the Minister was that he had not passed consistent order under similar circumstances. The petitioner obtained a rule from this Court against the respondents out of whom the State of Bihar is respondent No. 1 to show cause why the impugned orders, Annexures 2 and 4, of respondents 3 and 1 be not quashed by grant of a writ of certiorari. A counter-affidavit had been filed on behalf of the Transport Corporation and cause had been shown at the time of the hearing of the rule on its behalf by the learned Advocate General.

(3.) At the outset it may be stated that the Transport Corporation had filed C. W. J. C. No. 150 of 1968 from the order of the Transport Minister a copy of which is Annexure 5 to the writ application. The same Transport Minister under similar circumstances had refused permit to one Gauri Shankar Sharma and he had preferred C. W. J. C. No. 86 of 1968 in this Court to quash the order of the Transport Minister and to grant a permit to him. Both these cases were heard by a Bench of this Court of which I was a member. By the judgment delivered on 20th August, 1968, C. W. J. C. No. 86 of 1968 was dismissed and C. W. J. C. No. 150 of 1968, was allowed. The point which has been pressed again vehemently by Mr. Saptami Jha in this case was not accepted in the earlier decision even though it had been pressed with equal vehemence in that case also. The Bench decision- of this Court in the cases of Gauri Shankar Sharma and Ram Sanehi Singh applies on all fours to the instant case. On a consideration of several Supreme Court decisions, it was pointed out that after the scheme had been finalised the grant of stage carriage permit to the State Transport undertaking under Sub-section (1) of Section 68-F and the consequential orders on the private operators under Sub-section (2) of that section were mechanical. In other words, the necessary consequences of giving effect to the approved and final scheme have got to follow. The scheme may provide for partial exclusion of the private operators and as pointed out by the Supreme Court in Ramnath Verma v. State of Rajasthan one of those methods of partial exclusion may be that a private operator will be permitted to ply his stage carriage on a portion of the notified route but upon the condition that be cannot pick up any passenger on that portion of the route. It was expressly said thereafter in the judgment of this Court in the previous cases "But if the scheme does not provide any such partial exclusion, or, to put it in other words, does not permit a private operator to ply its stage carriage on a portion of the notified route even by imposing the condition of not picking up of the passengers, it is not open to any authority to allow a private operator to ply his stage carriage on a portion of the notified route even by imposing such a condition". It was pointed out further in clear terms that no other view seems to be possible in this regard and the authorities, who took a contrary view while granting such an extension of the route to a private operator a portion of which had a common road sector with a notified route committed an error of law which could not be allowed to stand.