Case: State of Jammu &amp; Kashmir &amp; Others Vs. Thakur Ganga Singh &amp; Another

The first respondent is one of the shareholders of the second respondent M/s. Jammu Kashmir Mechanics And Transport Workers Co-operative Society Limited, Jammu (hereinafter called the Society). The Society was registered under the Jammu and Kashmir Co-operative Societies Act No. 6 of 1993 (Vikrimi). They put in a number of applications before the third appellant for the grant of stage carriage and public carrier permits to them for various routes in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, but no permits were granted to them on the ground that under R. 4-47 of the Jammu and Kashmir Motor Vehicles Rules (hereinafter called the Rules), service licence could only be issued to a person or a company registered under the Partnership Act and that, as the Society was neither a person nor a partnership, it was not entitled to a licence under the Rules. The respondents filed a petition in the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir under S. 103 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir challenging the vires of R. 4-47 of the Rules. To that petition the appellants herein, viz., the Government of Jammu and Kashmir State, the Transport Minister, the Registering Authority and the Traffic Superintendent, were made party-respondents. The High Court held that the said rule was ultra vires as offending Art. 14 of the Constitution, and, on that finding, directed a writ of mandamus to issue against the appellants herein from enforcing the provisions of the said rule. The appellants filed an application in the High Court for a certificate under Art. 132 (1) of the Constitution, but the High Court rejected it on the ground that no substantial question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution was involved in the case. Thereafter the appellants applied for special leave under Art. 132(2) of the Constitution and this court granted the same. The order giving the special leave expressly granted liberty to the respondents herein to raise the question of the maintainability of the appeal at its final hearing.

Reasoning: Under cl. (2) of Art. 132 there is no scope for granting a special leave unless two conditions are satisfied: (i) the case should involve a question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution; and (iii) the said question should be a substantial question of law. The principle underlying the Article is that the final authority of interpreting the Constitution must rest with the Supreme Court. With that object the Article is freed from other limitations imposed under Art. S. 133 and 134 and the right of appeal of the widest amplitude is allowed irrespective of the nature of the proceedings in a case involving only a substantial question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution.an interpretation of Art. 14, a series of decisions of this Court evolved the doctrine of classification. As we have pointed out, at no stage of the proceedings either the correctness of the interpretation of Art. 14 or the principles governing the doctrine of classification have been questioned by either of theis only a restatement of the law that has been enunciated by this Court in Charanjit Lal Chowdhuri v. The Union of India, 1950 SCR 869  : (AIR 1951 SC 41  ) and in other subsequent decisions. The said principles were reaffirmed in the recent decisions of this Court in Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice Tendolkar, (1959) SCR 279  : (AIR 1958 SC 538  ) and in Mohammed Haneef Qureshi v. State of Bihar, (1959) SCR 629  : (AIR 1958 SC 731  ). In view of the said decision there is no further scope for putting a new interpretation on the provisions of Art. 14 of the Constitution vis-_is the doctrine of classification.The interpretation of Art. 14 in the context of classification has been finally settled by the highest Court of this land and under Art. 141 of the Constitution that interpretation is binding on all the Courts with in the territory of India. What remained to be done by the High Court was only to apply that interpretation to the facts before it. A substantial question of law, therefore, cannot arise where that law has been finally and authoritatively decided by this Court.