- (1.) THESE six petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution filed by 41 stage carriage permit-holders chal lenge a scheme made under Chap ter IV-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) for nationalising transport ser vices on two routes in the Agra region of Uttar Pradesh. A proposal under Section 68-C of the Act was made on the 16th April, 1962 and notified on the 21st April, 1962, in respect of Aligarh-Ramghat-via-Atrauli route Aligarh-Bijauli-via-Atrauli route was also added thereto later by an amendment made on the 5th May, 1967 and published on the 6th June, 1967. A number of ob jections were made by the various pri vate operators but the Deputy Legal Remembrancer to the Government of Uttar Pradesh, who was authorised to consider the objections on behalf of the State Government, overruled the objec tions and approved the scheme on the 20th May, 1968 and the scheme so ap proved was published on the 31st August, 1968. The scheme, inter alia, cancels the permits issued to the peti tioners.
(2.) A number of averments have been made and numerous grounds have been taken in the petitions and the supplementary affidavit impugning the scheme but the scheme was attacked at the hearing on the following grounds only:- (1) Adequate opportunity was not given to the petitioners by the Deputy Legal Remembrancer to lead evidence while hearing and deciding the objec tions and hence his decision is vitiated; (2) The State Government has not created a separate department to per form the functions of the State Trans port Undertaking which is a statutory authority and the scheme as proposed and later finalised is not in accordance with law; (3) The compensation provided for the cancellation of the permits of the petitioners is illusory and the require ments as to compensation guaranteed under Article 31 (2) of the Constitution have been disregarded; (4) The scheme is hit by Article 14 of the Constitution as it involves hostile discrimination against the petitioners vis-a-vis other private operators in the Agra region and other regions of Uttar Pradesh; and (5) The law in Chapter IV-A of the Act is void as it impairs the fundamen tal rights of the petitioners under Arti cle 19 (1) (f) of the Constitution and accordingly there is no valid law as envisaged by Article 31 (1) of the Con stitution on the authority of which the petitioners could be deprived of their property. After the arguments on behalf of both the parties had concluded, an applica tion was made for the petitioners to add another additional ground, namely that the Deputy Legal Remembrance, in deciding the objections had not taken into consideration the personal hardships and individual grievances of the peti tioners and other operators; that appli cation was, however, rejected as it was belated. As regards the first ground, the grievance of the petitioners is that on the 6th April, 1968, the petitioners desired the issue of summonses to six witnesses who were officers of the State Transport Undertaking but the Deputy Legal Remembrancer declined to com ply with the request and thus the peti tioners were denied opportunity of lead ing evidence on their objections.
(3.) IT is now settled law that the authority hearing objections under Sec tion 68-D (2) of the Act has to record the evidence produced before him be fore deciding the objections. In Nage-swararao v. Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, AIR 1959 SC 308 it has been laid down that the State Government acts as a quasi-judicial Tri bunal when giving a hearing under Sec tion 68-A of the Act and in Malik Ram v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1961 SC 1715. the Supreme Court has observed that any hearing before a quasi-judicial au thority does not merely mean an argu ment but it may in proper cases include the taking of evidence, both oral and documentary and that accordingly, con sidering the nature of the objections and the purpose for which the hearing is given, production of evidence either oral or documentary is comprehended within the hearing contemplated by Sec. 68-D (2). The question which, how ever, arises is whether the hearing au thority is bound to issue summonses for witnesses if requested by the objectors. In Capital Multi-purpose Co-operative Societies v. State of Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1967 SC 1815 the Supreme Court said:- ".........strictly speaking, the autho rity cannot summon witnesses or order discovery and inspection of documents, as the Act has not provided for any such thing. Nor has any rule been pointed out to us making such a pro vision ......... But in the absence of such power all that the authority can do is to issue letters merely requesting per sons to appear and it "is open to those persons to appear or not. In this situa tion if an authority decides not to issue such letters it cannot be said that there was no effective hearing. In short, what the cases of this Court to which we have referred show is only this: if the party concerned wishes to produce any document or produce any witness, the authority may take the documentary evidence into consideration or take the evidence of the witness, necessary. But there is in the absence of any provision in the Act or the Rules, no power in the authority or the State Government to compel attendance of witnesses or to compel production of documents. This is of course not to say that if the authority wants any party before it to produce any document for satisfying it self whether the scheme is for the pur poses mentioned in Section 68-C it can not so ask; and if the party asked to produce documents does not do so, the authority would be entitled to draw such inferences as it might consider justified from the non-production of documents ........." (page 1821) The relevant U. P. Rules, namely, the U. P. State Road Transport Services (Development) Rules, 1958, do not pro vide for a power to the authority to issue summons and compel attendance of witnesses or production of documents. Rule 7 (2) envisages that the officer hearing the objection shall call upon the objectors to produce their oral and documentary evidence and Rule 7 (4) requires the objectors to produce neces sary and relevant evidence and witnes ses. There is indeed no obligation cast by the Rules on the inquiry Officer to issue summonses for witnesses sought by the objectors and it was, therefore, not imperative for the Deputy Legal Remembrancer to issue summonses as prayed by the petitioners. In the cir cumstances, his refusal to summon the witnesses cannot aggrieve the petitioners.;