V.K. Mehrotra, J. - (1.) ON the basis of recommendation made by the Secretary of the Regional Transport Authority, Bareilly on January 6, 1977 the State Transport Authority in its meeting of April 27, 1977 upgraded the route known as Bisauli -Bilsi -Kasgani route from category 'B' to category 'A' under the U.P. Motor Vehicles (Taxation) Act. This resulted in higher incidence of road tax on the petitioners who are operators of stage carriages on that route. They consequently, approached this Court through present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution for relief. While admitting the petitioner to a fuller hearing, a Division Bench of this Court directed issue of notice on the application by the petitioners for an ad interim order. This was on October 31, 1977. Later, the application was rejected on February 24, 1982 by one of us (Hon. R.M. Sahai, J.).
(2.) THE two principal grounds taken in the petition, are, firstly, that the operators were entitled to an opportunity to put forward their version against the proposed re -classification which, admittedly, they had not been afforded and, secondly, that the order of reclassification was bad as it had been passed in breach of the provisions of rule 6 of the U.P. Motor Vehicles Taxations Rules framed under the Act. These provisions were mandatory in character. Since the respondents failed to follow them, the order was invalid. Rule 6 came up for consideration by the Supreme Court in Smt. Sheela Wanti and others v. State Transport Authority U.P. Lucknow and others, (1981) 3 (sic) S.C.C. 665, The Supreme Court has taken the view that an operator under the rule is not entitled, as a matter of law, to hearing before reclassification of a route is made. However rule 6 was mandatory in character so that while reclassifying the route, three considerations mentioned in the various sub -rules must be kept in mind by the authority. It was found as a fact in that case that the order of the Authority did not disclose that those considerations had been kept in mind by it. The reclassification order was invalidated though the Supreme Court observed that the matter being one of public interest may be re -examined expeditiously. The recommendation of the Secretary of the Regional Transport Authority which has been approved in the instant case by the State Transport Authority, upgrading the route from category B to category A, is Annexure '1' to the writ petition. A copy of that recommendation has also been filed as Annexure 1 to a supplementary counter affidavit filed on behalf of the respondents. A perusal of the recommendation, which has been approved without any further reasons being recorded by the State Transport Authority, shows that the Secretary of the Regional Transport Authority, Bareilly made his recommendation for the upgrading of the route from category B to category A, for the reasons that potential income had risen substantially within a period of nearly ten years from the date when the classification had been made earlier, that the cost of maintenance had risen considerably during the period of ten years on account of continual rise in the cost of material and thirdly that the stage carriages were being plied on the route in public interest so that the necessity for development of the route was present.
(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioners urged that properly read the order did not amount to consideration of any of the factors contained in clauses (a), (b) and (c) of rule 6. He attempted to elaborate his submission with reference to the assertions contained in the affidavits exchanged between the parties. We have not felt inclined to go into this aspect in detail for the petition can be disposed of on a short ground and the ground is that even on the recital contained in the recommendation, clause (c) of rule 6 does not appear to have been considered at all. That clause runs as under: - - 6. Considerations to be applied when classifying route: When classifying routes, every controlling authority shall be guided by the following consideration in the order in which they appear in this rule, that is to say, (a) ..................... (b) ..................... (c) the necessity for the development of the proposed route in the public interest.;