Gajendragadkar, C. J. - (1.) These five appeals arise out of five writ petitions filed by the respective respondents in the Andhra Pradesh High Court against the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, and the State of Andhra Pradesh, appellants 1 and 2, challenging the validity of the orders passed by appellant No. 2 under S. 68D(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act (No. 1 of 1939) (hereinafter called the Act) on the 18th October, 1960 approving schemes for the nationalisation of bus transport in the area of Guntur. It appears that appellant No. 1 published in the Andhra Pradesh Gazette on the 26th May, 1960 ten schemes in respect of the area of Guntur for the purpose of taking over that road transport services from private operators under Chapter IVA of the Act. Objections were then called for from persons affected by the schemes, and the then Minister in charge of Transport Mr. S. P. B. Pattalhi Rama Rao, heard the said objections and ultimately approved the schemes with certain minor modifications on the 18th October, 1960. In the result, he ordered that the schemes should come into force on the dates specified in the Government Orders. These schemes were duly notified under G. O. Ms. Nos. 2230 to 2239 in the Andhra Pradesh Gazette (Extraordinary) dated 27th October, 1960. It is against the order passed by the Minister on the 18th October, 1960 that the five writ petitions were directed.
(2.) In their writ petitions, the respondents challenged the validity of the impugned order on serveral grounds. They urged that the initial publication of the proposed schemes under S. 68C was invalid, because they failed to give particulars as to the dates on which the respective schemes would be put into force. According to the respondents, failure to notify the said dates had virtually deprived them of adequate opportunity to file their objections. It was also contended by them that the impugned order empowered the Chief Executive Officer to carry out the schemes piecemeal, and that rendered the order invalid. Certain other contentions were also raised. All these contentions were rejected by the High Court and in normal course, the writ petitions would have been dismissed.
(3.) But, in one of the writ petitions No. 868 of 1960, a further contention had been raised against the validity of the impugned order. It was alleged that the conduct of the State Government in approving the schemes amounted to colourable exercise of its power under the Act inasmuch as the Minister in charge of the portfolio of Transport had a personal bias against Mr. Thummala Ramakotaiah, one of the petitioners in the said writ petition. The case thus presented by the petition raised a serious argument about the bias of the Minister; and on this point, affidavits were filed in support of the petition, and the Minister in question filed counter-affidavits in reply. The High Court examined this plea and came to the conclusion that it had been satisfactorily established that at the time when the Minister heard the objections filed by the respondents against the proposed notified schemes, he was actuated by bias; and in that view, the High Court has set aside the impugned order. The High Court did hold that Ramakotaiah, one of the petitioners in W. P. No. 868/1960 had not taken this objection before the Minister when he dealt with the relevant schemes under S. 68D (2); and that, in the opinion of the High Court, precluded the petitioners in the said writ petition from taking the plea about the bias of the Minister so far as their writ petition was concerned. However, once the bias was held proved, in law it followed that the order passed by the Minister was incompetent, because the presence of the bias in his mind disqualified him from hearing the objections against the proposed notified schemes. In that view of the matter, in the result, it made no difference to the petitioners in W. P. No. 868/ 1960 because the whole of the impugned order was set aside. It is against the orders thus passed by the High Court in the five writ petitions that the appellants have come to this Court with certificates granted by the High Court; and so, the narrow question which falls to be determined in these appeals is whether the High Court is right in coming to the conclusion that the Minister who dealt with the ten schemes under S. 68D (2) of the Act was incompetent to deal with them because he had a personal bias in the matter.;