Case: K. Venkamma Vs. Govt. of Andhra Pradesh and Others

Nationalisation of road transport service is of strategic significance to the countrys development and new legal issues arise as private operators, threatened with elimination, battle against such schemes. One such obstacle to the proposed nationalisation of the route Nellore-Ramapuram by the Andhra Pradesh Government is the subject matter of this appeal by certificate, the High Court having considered it substantial and novel enough to qualify under Article 133 of the Constitution. The point raised is short, the order under appeal brief, but the problem is thorny, with extra-territorial overtones and anomies in application. Can a route, whose termini lie within .the same State but which traverses in its course one or more other States, be designated as inter-state route ? If yes, then the exercise in nationalisation proposed by the respondent State cannot materialise into an approved scheme unless as desiderated by the proviso to Section 68D(3) ofthe Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter referred to as M. V. Act), the previous approval of the Central Government is secured. Here, admittedly, no such approval has been obtained and the notified route does pass over a short distance of about 8 km. through Tamil Nadu. The route Nellore-Ramapuram was, according to counsel for the existing private operator, an inter-state route and non- compliance with Section 68D(3) of M.V. Act aborted the nationalisation. The counter-submission by the State which appealed to the. High Court was that the decisive test turned on whether both the termini fell within the same State and it did in this case, and so no question of inter-state routethe first flush, an inter-state route may be of two categories, either connecting two states or traversing two or more states. Blacks Legal Dictionary considers interstate to mean Between two or more states; between places or persons in different states; concerning or affecting two or more states politically or territorially. And that accord s with commonsense. The termini test as presented by counsel for the State, may lead to strange results, fatal to federal ideas. A route which originates in Srinagar, runs down South to Kanya Kumari and rises North to end again in Kashmir, completing a Bharatdarshan, cannot sensibly be called an intrastate one, without doing gross violence to language, geography and federalism. And in the absence of a statutory definition of inter-state route, non-violence to English and conformance to commonsense dictate the adoption of the conventional meaning that if a route traverses more than one state it is inter-state.The statutory sensitivity to one State permitting stage carriages from within its territory into another is reflected in Section 63(1) and (4). 68D(3) proviso and Section 20 ofthe Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. We are skirting the constitutional question of extraterritorial powers but are confining ourselves to a mere interpretation of the provisions of the Act. Route is defined in Section 2(28A) to mean a line of travel which specifies the highway which may be traversed by a motor vehicle between one terminus and another. The point is that it is not a notional line as the crow flies but the actual highway as a motor vehicle travels from one terminus to another. The inference is inevitable that a route is transformed into an interstate one, if the highway it covers passes through more than oneeasy breakthrough is seemingly obstructed by two rulings of this Court relied on by counsel for the State, although the High Court while granting the certificate, felt that these decisions did not really cover the case on hand.

Reasoning: The facts and discussion bear out abundantly that there is nothing in the ruling to suggest that even if a route traverses territory of another State it is none-the-less an intra-State route if the points of beginning and ending fall within one State. It is a fallacy so to construe that decision. What is repelled in that case is the contention that if a high-way r un through many States, any portion of that high-way which is picked out for running a bus service as a route, should also be deemed to be inter-state for the only reason that such a route (though its entire length f alls within a single State) overlaps a road which crosses many States. The very definition of route in Section 2(28-A) is sufficient to extinguish that argument and this Court rightly, if we may so with respect, rejected it. We cannot confuse between road and route. If the whole of the route lies within a single State it is intra-state and not inter-state, even though the road over which the route lies runs beyond the borders of t hat single State as national highwayscan be no doubt that the scheme notified by one State will, even in the case of an inter-state route, operate to the extent it lies within that State. Its extraterritorial effect depends on securing of prior Central approval under the proviso to Section 68D(3). That being absent, the permit granted in one State may still be valid in another State if the condition specified in the 2nd proviso to Section 63(1) ismay point out that section 20 of the Road Transport Corporations Act (a Central Act) provides for extension of the operation of the road transport service of a corporation of one State to areas within another State. We are not directly concerned with such a scheme as is contemplated by that provision since passage over a neighbouring State if the length of such intersection does not exceed 16 km. is saved by the 2nd proviso to Section 63(1) of the M.V. Act. We, therefore, reach the conclusion that (a) the route Nellore-Ramapuram is an interstate route; (b) the scheme of nationalisation is operative even in the absence of the previous approval of the Central Government, so far as the portions which fall within Andhra Pradesh are concerned; and (c) the nationalisation cannot become effective over the tiny strip in Tamil Nadu and private operators may still be permitted to ply their services over that strip by the concerned authority within Tamil Nadu State; but (d) the Andhra Pradesh Sate Transport Corporation may ply its buses over the Tamil Nadu enclave even without counter-signature exemption having been granted in that behalf by the 2nd proviso to Section 63(1) of the M.V. Act.In this view, the appeal must substantially fail except to the extent of the little modification we have indicated, which does not profit thethe present case there is no scheme of national isation relating to theroute from Bellary to Manthralaya. The Bellary Scheme is confined to theroutes, one of those being theroute. It may be that that portion overlaps the inter state route from Bellary to Manthralaya but so long as it is anroute it could be nationalised by the State of Mysore under the provisions of s. 68D."No further comment is necessary.