Case: Y. Mahaboob Sheriff &amp; Sons &amp; Others Vs. Mysore State Transport Authority &amp; Others

The petitioners are transport operators in what is known as the Anekal-pocket of the State of Mysore. They held stage carriage permits for various routes, which were expiring on March 31, 1958. They therefore applied for the renewal of the permits on various dates in January 1958 as required under the law. Normally, their applications should have been disposed of before March 31, 1958. However, on February 1, the Mysore Government Road Transport Department (hereinafter called the Department) made applications under Chapter IV of the Motor Vehicles Act, No. IV of 1939, (hereinafter called the Act) for grant of permits on the same routes for which renewal applications were pending. The Department followed this up by a letter dated February 25, 1958, to the Regional Transport Authority, Bangalore, (hereinafter called the Authority). In this letter, the Authority was informed that the Department had already submitted applications for grant of permits for operation of transport vehicles in the Anekal pocket and it was proposed to take over these routes with effect from April 1, 1958. It was also pointed out that the Government of Mysore had been pursuing the policy of nationalisation of road transport services with a view to rationalise and coordinate the various forms of transport and that the Department was operating 1200 vehicles on 700 routes. The letter went on the point out the advantages of granting permits to the Department resulting in rationalisation of the routes in the Anekal pocket in which at that time there were 20 routes and 58 operators. It was therefore requested that the permits of the petitioners should not be renewed and fresh permits granted to the Department3. The Authority met a number of times from March to July 1958 but passed no orders on the applications of the petitioners nor on those of the Department. Eventually, on August 11, 1958, the Authority dismissed the petitioners applications for renewal as well as the Departments for grant of fresh permits. We must say that this appears to be a curious order, for the result of this order strictly would be that no stage carriages would be able to ply on these routes. However, both parties appealed on September 9, 1958, against the orders of August 11. In the meantime, a scheme under S. 68C of Chapter IV-A of the Act was published. This scheme was approved on October 24, 1958, while the appeals were pending. On October 30, the appeals of both parties were allowed and the matter was remanded to the Authority for fresh disposal. In the meantime, however, the petitioners had applied to the High Court for quashing the scheme and it was quashed by the High Court on December 3, 1958. Thereafter the Authority met again and passed orders renewing the permits of the petitioners for a period of one year from April 1, 1958 to March 31, 1959. The petitioners went up in appeal against the orders granting them renewal only for one year on the ground that they were entitled to renewal for three years at least under S. 58 of the Act. Their appeals were dismissed as not maintainable. They also applied to the High Court of Mysore under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution but their petition was dismissed in limine and a certificate to enable them to appeal to this Court was refused on March 30, 1959. Thereafter the present petitions were filed in this Court. In the meantime, however, a fresh scheme was published on January 22, 1959, and after necessary formalities was approved on April 15, 1959, and finally published as an approved scheme on April 23, 1959. What happended thereafter is not really material for purposes of these petitions but we may as well mention it to complete the narrative. The Department applied for permits under S. 68F of the Act on April 24, 1959. On April 30, 1959, the petitioners challenged the new scheme before the High Court of Mysore by a writ petition. That petition was however dismissed on June 1, 1959. Thereafter they came to this Court for special leave and prayed for ex parte stay, which was refused. Notice was however issued on the stay application which was served on June 18, 1959. It may be mentioned here that in order to avoid inconvenience to the public temporary permits had been granted to the petitioners on the expirty of the renewal upto March 31, 1959, for a period of four months or upto the time the Department was granted permits under S. 68F, whichever was earlier. Consequently, on June 23, 1959, the Authority met and granted permits to the Department under S. 68F and rejected the renewal applications of the petitioners which were said to have been filed under protest. On June 24, 1959, the transport services in pursuance of the scheme were inaugurated by the Chief Minister. On the same day the petitioners applied to the High Court by a writ petition challenging the order of June 23, 1959. On July 14, 1959, the High Court held that the grant of permits to the Department was invalid and the rejection of the renewal applications was incorrect. But it did not pass any order in favour of the petitioners on the ground that the relief granted would be short-lived and dismissed the writ petition. The petitioners then applied for a certificate to enable them to appeal to this Court and that application is still pending. Thereafter the Department applied for temporary permits which were granted on July 16, 1959. Another writ petition was filed on July 24, 1959, by the petitioners challenging the grant of temporary permits to the Department which is still pending. In the meantime, the petitioners filed two other writ petitions in this Court which were admitted and will be dealt with separately. Finally, the special leave petition against the judgment of the High Court dismissing the writ petition against the approved scheme was dismissed by this Court on September 7, 1959.

Reasoning: 8. The Department went up in appeal against this order which was allowed in March 1959 and the Authorities were directed to reconsider the applications. In the meantime the Regional Transport Authority, Bangalore, ordered in January 1959 that the applications for renewal should be re-notified and this was done. Upon this, the Department wrote again to the Bangalore Authority on 20-2-1959, not to renew the permits of the petitioners. Eventually, the Regional Transport Authority, Bangalore, met on 29-3-1959; and renewed permits relating to certain other routes for three years while the applications of the present petitioners were postponed. There was another meeting on 30-4-1959, when the permits of the petitioners were renewed till 30-9-1959. It is this order which is being challenged by the present petition. The petitioners case is that they are entitled to carry on the business of transport of passengers as a fundamental right guaranteed to them under Art. 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, and that this right can only be restricted in the manner provided by the Act which is a regulatory measure dealing with motor vehicles. They contend that they were entitled under S. 58 of the Act to renewal of their permits for at least three years in case the Authorities decided to grant renewal on the applications which they had made in January 1958 and in so far as the Authorities gave them renewal only upto 30-9-1958, they were acting in contravention of the Act and were thus committing a breach of their fundamental right. They therefore pray that this Court should come to their aid and protect their fundamental right to carry on the business of transport in accordance with the Act. The prayer which they actually made is somewhat inartistic but in effect they want that the Authorities be directed to renew their permits in accordance with the Act, which requires that the renewal must be for a period of not less than three years and not more than five years so far as stage carriage permits are concerned15. This case is similar to Writ Petitions Nos. 54 and 75 of 1959, in which judgment has been just delivered to day and raises the same two questions which have been raised there. The only different is that there is no scheme prepared under Chapter IV-A in connection with the routes with which we are concerned here. We have considered the interpretation of S. 58(2) read with S. 58(1)(a) in Writ Petitions Nos. 75 and 54 of 1959 and the form of the order to be passed. For reasons given in those petitions, we are of opinion that this petition should be allowed.