- (1.) What arises for consideration in these appeals directed against judgment and order of the High court of Madras is whether the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles (Special Provisions) Act, 1992 (Act No. 41 of 1992 (hereinafter called 'the Act') prohibiting grant of any permit overlapping whole or part of the notified route after 30/6/1990 is invalid and ultra vires being violative of Article 14 for creating two classes among small operators by arbitrarily providing cut-off date and what is the ambit and scope of Section 10 and whether the decision of this court in Pandiyan Roadways Corpn. Ltd. v. M. A. Egappan requires reconsideration.
(2.) In the State of Tamil Nadu the State government after addition of Ch. IV-A in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 framed various schemes in 1976 nationalising different routes. The effect of publication of the draft scheme was that the private stage carriage operators were excluded from operating on any part of it. But on various routes there were bifurcations; and the State Transport Authorities issued new permits and renewed existing permits for these routes which in course of its journey traversed part of the notified route, under the impression that exclusion of private operators under the Scheme was partial only. It was challenged by State Transport Undertaking (in brief "the Undertaking") and its claim was upheld and such permits which overlapped even a portion of the nationalised route were declared invalid. One of such permit-holders who was an operator on a nonnotified route, while getting its permit renewed, got permission to ply on a route part of which overlapped notified route, approached this court and in Pandiyan Roadways the decision of the High court was upheld and it was held that in view of the decision given by the Constitution bench in Adarsh Travels Bus Service v. State of U. P. the permits granted by the State to stage carriage operators which overlapped any part of the notified route were invalid. The court held that only those operators were entitled to ply on part of notified routes who were permitted to do so by the scheme itself. The effect of this decision was that large number of permits of private operators, nearly 4000, were rendered invalid. To meet this extraordinary situation, when 4000 vehicles run by small operators (each having not less than 5 permits) were in danger of going off the road, which was oppressive not only to the operators but it exposed the public to great hardship and inconvenience and made it wellnigh impossible either for the State or the Undertaking to replace the vehicles which involved an expenditure of nearly Rs. 300. 00 crores, the State issued government Order No. 2222 in 1987 to the authorities to renew permits of such operators and requested the Undertaking not to oppose it. It also introduced a Bill (L. A. Bill No. 42 of 1987, the object of which was to "grant permits to small operators. . to ply their stage carriage on any portion of the area or route covered by the draft schemes or the approved schemes". The Bill was assented to by the President, as well,but it was not published, consequently it never came into force. In the meantime the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 was repealed by Parliament and Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (Act No. 59 of 1988 came into force from 1/7/19899. It permitted pending schemes to be published and approved within one year after expiry of which it was to lapse. The schemes, therefore, had to be approved on or before 30/6/1990. In the State there were 800 schemes which had been published and were pending approval. Out of these 251 schemes were approved between 22/6/1990 and 30/6/1990. Ch. VI of the new Act contains similar provisions as were in Ch. IV-A of the repealed Act. The effect of approval of the schemes under the new Act and the interpretation placed by this court in Pandiyan Roadways 2 was that no private operator could ply on part of notified route and the government Order No. 2222 of 1987 had to be withdrawn. The government, therefore, issued government Order No. 179 4/08/1990 withdrawing the earlier order issued in July 1987 in wake of the judgment in Pandiyan Roadways. It was followed by an Ordinance issued on 8/10/1990 repealing L. A. Bill No. 42 of 1987. The small operators, thus, once again were faced with the difficulty in which their vehicles were likely to become stationary. They, therefore, filed different batch of writ petitions seeking by one, mandamus from the court to direct the State to publish the L. A. Bill No. 42 of 1987 and by other, challenged validity of the government Order issued in 1990 withdrawing earlier government Order of 1987. The petitions were dismissed on 9/10/1990. On 24/1/1991 Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles (Special Provisions) Repeal Act, 1991 was passed repealing L. A. Bill No. 42 of 1987. The operators numbering approximately 4000 who had been granted permits overlapping notified route after 1976 approached this court through their association known as Federation of Operators' Association by way of two Writ Petitions Nos. 361 and 365 of 1991 under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for different relief with same objective in which an interim order was passed and doubt was expressed on Pandiyan Roadways. The State Legislature, in these circumstances, enacted the impugned Act which came into force on 31/7/1992.
(3.) Due to the uncertainty prevailing in the State as a result of different orders issued by the government from time to time, the transport authorities appear to have issued permits to private operators even after 1987. But when the Act came into force in July 1992 with eleven S. it provided that S. 1 to 5 and 8 to 11 were deemed to have come into force on 4/6/1976 and ceased to be in force on 30/6/1990. The Act placed complete embargo on issue of fresh permits after 30/6/1990. Therefore, its validity was challenged by those operators who had been issued permits after 30/6/1990. The principal attack was founded on absence of any justification for classifying the operators in two classes one, those to whom permits had been granted till 30/6/1990 and others, to whom permits were issued after that date. It was claimed that the basic purpose of the enactment being to protect the interests of small operators, the classification amongst them by taking 30/6/1990 as cut-off date was arbitrary and against legislativeobjective and purpose. The prohibition in the Act against grant of any new permit was challenged as it was contrary to the policy pursued by State government from 1976 onwards and it was claimed that the very purpose of the Act by which the Legislature intended to perpetuate its earlier policy of permitting small operators to ply on overlapping notified routes would stand frustrated. Validity of Section 7 abating the proceeding for grant of permit was also assailed. The High court did not find any merit in any of the submissions. It was held that the cut-off date as 30/6/1990 was rational as the Motor Vehicles Act of 1939 having been repealed and the new Act having come into force from 1/7/1989 with a provision that the schemes pending on the date when the Act came into force would be valid only for one year, namely, up to 30/6/1990 unless they were approved and published, the State Legislature, keeping the provisions of the central enactment in view, considered it appropriate to fix the cut-off date from the date the time to get the schemes approved, lapsed. The High court held that even under the new Act Ch. VI provides for the same scheme as was earlier provided by Ch. IV-A. Therefore, when the Legislature enacted Act 41 of 1992 it, while protecting those in whose favour permits were granted before the decision was given in Pandiyan Roadways , accepted the interpretation placed by this court by prohibiting grant of any new permit overlapping even part of notified route from 1990 onwards. Nor did the court find any merit in the submission that by virtue of Section 10 the permits granted even on or after 1/7/1990 and till the date when the Act was passed or thereafter were valid. Aggrieved by the decision given by the High court on various sets of petitions filed by operators who had applied and were granted permits on or after 1/7/1990 both on intra and inter-State route, these appeals have been filed. The writ petitions, as stated earlier, have been filed by those operators who were granted permits between 1976 and 1990. In fact these petitions have been rendered infructuous after enactment of Act No. 41 of 1992.;