KARNATAKA STATE ROAD TRANSPORT CORPORATION Vs. WORKMEN OF KARNATAKA STATE ROAD TRANSPORT CORPORATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These five appeals are preferred against the common order passed by the learned Single Judge quashing the impugned orders and notifications by which the State had established three Road Transport Corporations.

(2.) The first petitioner-Workmen of Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation represented by KSRTC Staff and Workers Federation is a recognized Federation of affiliated Trade Unions in the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation and has been so recognised since 1987 after a ballot. The second petitioner is an employee in 2nd Depot, B.T.S. He has also been working as Secretary of Death Cum Relief Benefit Fund (D.R.B.F.) set up by the Corporation.

(3.) The Passenger Road Transport Services in the public sector was first started in the then State of Mysore on 12.09.1948 as a Government Department with a modest fleet of 120 buses. After the State's Reorganization and the near doubling of the territory of the State and merging of the services operated in the territories of Andhra and Maharashtra, the activities and the fleet became largely enlarged. To cope up with this growth, the Mysore State Road Transport Corporation was set up on 01.08.1961 under the Road Transport Corporations Act, 1950 (for short hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'). The various transport services which were operating in different parts of Karnataka, were brought under one roof. They are in Old Mysore, MGRTD (Mysore Govt. Road Transport Department) which was a departmental undertaking run by the Government of Mysore. Similar was the position in respect of Hyderabad Karnataka Area. From the North Karnataka it covered Bombay Transport Service (BTS). The transport services in Bangalore city was originally run by Bangalore Transport Company (BTC) a private organization. The same was nationalized in the year 1956 and became BTS. However it was administered as MGRTD. The Mysore State Road Transport Corporation was later renamed when the State's name underwent a change on 01.11.1973 as Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (for short hereinafter referred to as 'the KSRTC). The KSRTC was one of the biggest RTCs and it was the third largest Road Transport Corporation in the country. Bus routes on 71% of the total area of the State were nationalized and buses in these routes are operated only by KSRTC which is a public sector undertaking owned by the State. On the day the Writ Petition was filed, 62,000 employees were working in the KSRTC, 10,500 buses were on the road, about 64 lakh passengers were travelling in a day. The kilometer operated per day was of the order of 26.92 lakhs carrying about 60.65 lakhs of passengers. The number of drivers were about 21,000 and conductors being 20,000.