THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE R. SUBHASH REDDY Writ Petition No.4138 of 2008 ORDER: 1 In this Writ Petition the petitioner seeks a direction by way of Mandamus to declare the action of the respondents in not paying an amount of Rs.38,993/- for the additional kilometres operated by him when the bus of the petitioner was hired to the respondents. 2 Pursuant to the paper notification dated 21.04.2000, the petitioner was one of the applicants who had offered to operate a new 47 seater vehicle No.AP 9 W 1815 on route No. 188 / 251 from Mehdipatnam to Shamshabad with daily vehicle utilisation not exceeding 311 KMs. Pursuant to the application when he has offered to run his bus, the selection committee has approved the offer of the petitioner vide proceedings dated 05.07.000 pursuant to which an agreement was entered into and in terms of the agreement, the petitioner had accepted to operate the bus at the rate of Rs.9.02 ps. Per kilometre and it was also agreed to accept to revise the tariff whenever there is a hike in the price of diesel. It is not in dispute that during the relevant period, there was a hike in diesel price and as per the agreement, the petitioner was paid at the rate of Rs.10.20 per kilometre. 3 In this Writ Petition, it is the grievance of the petitioner that on the route, which was entrusted to the petitioner to run the bus, there was a deviation in view of the construction of a bridge in NAARM campus and the same resulted in running extra Kilometres to the extent of 7.82 KM per trip. It is his further case that though the petitioner has operated the extra kilometres more than 311 kilometres, in view of the construction of the bridge in NAARM campus, he was not paid the hire charges for the extra kilometres covered by him. 4 In the counter affidavit filed on behalf of the respondents, while admitting that the petitioner has operated extra distance of 7.82 KM than the agreed terms, it is stated that as per the guidelines dated 16.04.2004 payment was made for the extra kilometres after deviation by calculating charges with the applicable hire rate per kilometre minus Rs.4.00 per kilometre. The respondents have also disputed the figure of Rs.38,993/- which is claimed by the petitioner stating that he has wrongly calculated at the rate of Rs.10.89 per K.M, which is contrary to the agreed term as per the agreement. 5 In view of the stand taken by the respondents in the counter affidavit, the plea of the petitioner that he was not paid any charges for the extra kilometres cannot be accepted. It is evident from the counter affidavit that even for the extra kilometres covered by the petitioner, respondents have paid the hire charges by calculating at the applicable hire charges per kilometre minus Rs.4.00. It appears, that as per the agreement, when Rs.10.20 was paid per kilometre for the entire length of distance covered by the petitioner, there is no reason or justification for the respondents for paying for each extra kilometre by deducting Rs.4.00 per Kilometre. Whatever logic is made applicable for fixing the price for 311 Kilometres, which was to run as per the agreement, the same equally applies to the extra kilometres also operated by the petitioner. It is also to be noticed that coverage of extra kilometres is not on account of any volition on the part of the petitioner, but it is only on account of construction of a bridge in the route on which the petitioner was asked to operate the bus. Even as per the counter affidavit field by the respondents, such deviation occurred only on account of construction of a bridge in NAARM campus which was in the midway for the route operated by the petitioner. As it is not in dispute that for extra kilometres only the respondents have deducted Rs.4.00 per kilometre without any just reason, I deem it a fit case to dispose of the Writ Petition directing the respondents to pay the differential amount to the petitioner. 6 For the aforesaid reasons, the Writ Petition is disposed of directing the respondents to calculate the charges for the extra kilometres without any deduction and calculate the same at the rate which was applied for 311 kilometres and pay the differential charges for the extra kilometres covered by the petitioner within a period of two months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. No order as to costs. --------------------------- R.Subhash Reddy, J. 10.11.2011 Kvsn