Onkar Singh & Ors Vs. Regional
Transport Authority, Agra & Ors [1986] INSC 89 (23 April 1986)
VENKATARAMIAH, E.S. (J) VENKATARAMIAH, E.S.
(J) MUKHARJI, SABYASACHI (J)
CITATION: 1986 AIR 1719 1986 SCR (2) 735 1986
SCC (3) 259 1986 SCALE (1)561
CITATOR INFO:
RF 1992 SC1789 (5)
ACT:
Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 ss. 68-C and 68-D -
Inordinate delay in approving the draft scheme - Whether delay prejudices
public interest warranting interference by court - Necessity of
modifying/approving the draft scheme expeditiously - Explained.
HEADNOTE:
The appellants, Private Operators, had
obtained temporary permits under section 68-F (1-C) of the Motor Vehicles Act
1939 on the route Somna-Naujheel. They could not obtain permits under Chapter
IV of the Act to operate on the said route since a scheme published in 1960
under section 68-C of the Act was in force. They were asked to stop plying
their vehicles. Aggrieved by the stoppage of the running of their vehicles,
they filed a Writ Petition in the High Court contending that once temporary
permits were issued under Section 68-F(1-C) of the Act, they would remain in
force until the draft scheme published under s. 68-C was approved under s. 68-D
of the Act. The High Court dismissed the Petition on the ground that since
permits had already been issued to the State Transport Undertaking, the
temporary permits issued to other private operators under section 68-F(1-C) of
the Act came to an end.
In the appeal to the Supreme Court, it was
contended on behalf of the appellants that the draft scheme, published under
section 68-C of the Act having become stale was liable to be quashed due to
inordinate delay in completing the proceedings under s. 68-D of the Act.
Allowing the appeal.
^
HELD : 1(i) The draft scheme published in the
year 1960 u/s 68-C of the Act is quashed and the Hearing Authority under
section 68-D of the Act is directed not to proceed with the hearing of the
matter. [740 F] 736 1.(ii) It is now open to the Uttar Pradesh State Road
Transport Corporation to publish, if it so desires a fresh scheme under section
68-C of the Act. The Corporation on the route in question pursuant to the
permits issued under section 68-F(1-A) or under section 68-F(1-C) of the Act,
as the case may be, are permitted to operate their stage carriages until
15.10.1986. If a fresh scheme is published under section 68-C of the Act within
that period it shall be open to the Corporation to apply for fresh temporary
permits under section 68-F(1-A) of the Act. On permits being granted under
section 68-F(1-A) of the Act, all the permits now issued under section
68-F(1-A) or under section 68-F(1-C) of the Act shall come to an end. Until a
fresh draft scheme is published under section 68-C of the Act, it shall be open
to any person to make applications for a stage carriage permit under Chapter IV
of the Act. [740 F-H; 741 A-B] 2.(i) The proviso to section 68-F(1-D) of the
Act which provides that where the period of operation of a permit in relation
to any area, route, or portion thereof specified in a scheme published under
section 68-C of the Act expires after such publication, such permit may be
renewed for a limited period, but the permit so renewed shall cease to be
effective on the publication of the scheme under sub-section (3) of section
68-D of the Act indicates legislative intention regarding the maximum period
that may be spent on the proceedings which intervene between the date of
publication of the draft scheme under section 68-C of the Act and the
publication of the approved or modified scheme under section 68-D(3) of the
Act. It suggests that it cannot be longer than 3 to 5 years which is usually
the period during which a permit can be in force without renewal as provided in
section 58 of the Act. It could never have been in the contemplation of
Parliament that the period for approving a scheme with or without modification
or for rejecting it could be 25 years as in this case. [739 E-H] 2.(ii) Two of
the undesirable effects of the inordinate delay in completing the proceedings
under section 68-D of the Act are : (i) it exhibits lack of interest on the
part of the administraton in bringing into effect administrative decisions
without undue delay; and (ii) the public interest suffers as the members of the
public are denied normal stage carriage 737 services of an improved kind
because the operators who are operating on temporary permits would have no
incentive to develop any enduring goodwill and naturally not interested in
providing better services. [740 A-C] In the instant case, sufficient grounds
have not been made out for sustaining the draft scheme at this distance of
time. It is seen that there is tremendous pressure for the grant of permits to
ply stage carriages on the route. Yet the State Transport Undertaking which is
expected to provide adequate, efficient, economic and co-ordinated service has
failed to do so even after twenty five years have elapsed.
It may be that some operators had adopted
delaying tactics.
But the Hearing Authority under section 68-D
of the Act should have taken necessary steps to conclude the proceedings early.
The delay of nearly a quarter of a century is inexcusable. The draft scheme has
virtually become out-moded. Therefore, there has been clear disobedience of the
provisions of the Act. [739 C-E] Yogeshwar Jaiswal v. State Transport Appellate
Tribunal
Transport Authority, Ujjain & Ors.,
[1985] 4 S.C.C. 190, Shri Chand v. Government of U.P. Lucknow & Ors.,
[1985] 4 S.C.C. 169, relied upon.
& CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil
Appeal No. 1360 of 1986.
From the Judgment and Order dated 13th
January, 1986 of the Allahabad High Court in C.M.W.P. 1613 of 1986.
Mrs. Rani Chhabra and R.K. Jain for the
Appellants.
O.P. Rana, Anil Dev Singh, Raju Ramachandran
and Mrs. Shobha Dikshit for the Respondents.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
VENKATARAMIAH, J. The appellants are carrying on the business of running stage
carriages in the State of Uttar Pradesh. They had obtained temporary permits
under section 68-F(1-C) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter referred
to as 'the Act') on the route Somna-Naujheel. They 738 could not obtain permits
under Chapter IV of the Act to operate on the said route since a scheme
published under section 68-C of the Act in the year 1960 was in force. It would
appear that the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (hereinafter
referred to as 'the Corporation') applied for fifteen temporary permits for
operating its stage carriages on the route in question and obtained them from
the Regional Transport Authority, Agra under section 68-F(1-A) of the Act as
per its order dated 31.1.1984. But the Corporation introduced only five
services against fifteen permits. Thus there were ten vacancies. The Regional
Transport Authority granted ten temporary permits to ten private operators in
those ten vacancies. One Devender Pal Singh who was holding a non-temporary
permit issued under Chapter IV of the Act filed a revision petition under
section 64-A of the Act before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal. The
petition was dismissed. On account of the pressure of traffic the number of
temporary permits was increased to thirty four. The Corporation was granted
these additional permits. But it failed to operate its services under all the
permits issued to it. The private operators who wanted to operate the vehicles
were not granted temporary permits. The appellants were asked to stop plying
their vehicles under the temporary permits obtained by them.
Aggreived by the stoppage of the running of
their vehicles, they filed a writ petition in the High Court of Allahabad in
Civil Miscellaneous Writ Petition No. 1613 of 1985 contending that once
temporary permits were issued under section 68-F(1-C) of the Act they would
remain in force until the draft scheme published under section 68-C was
approved under section 68-D of the Act. The High Court being of the opinion
that on permits being issued to the State Transport Undertaking, i.e., the
Corporation in this case, the temporary permits issued to other private
operators under section 68-F(1-C) of the Act came to an end, dismissed the writ
petition. Aggreived by the Judgment in the writ petition, the appellants have
filed this appeal by special leave. When this petition came up for admission on
April 1, 1986 before this Court it was urged by the appellants that the draft
scheme published under section 68-C of the Act having become stale was liable
to be quashed in view of some of the recent decisions rendered by this Court.
On the basis of the above submissions notices were issued to the State
Government and the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation - the 739
respondent herein to show cause why the draft scheme should not be quashed. The
counter-affidavit has been filed on behalf of the Corporation opposing the
prayer made in this appeal.
The draft scheme admittedly was published under
section 68-C of the Act on June 25, 1960 more than 25 years ago and it has not
yet been approved. It is still in the stage of a draft scheme. We have been
taken through the counter- affidavit filed on behalf of the Corporation setting
out the several steps taken in the proceedings before the Hearing Authority
under section 68-D of the Act. On going through the counter-affidavit we are
not convinced that sufficient grounds have been made out for sustaining the
draft scheme at this distance of time. It is seen that there is tremendous
pressure for the grant of permits to ply stage carriages on the route. Yet the
State Transport Undertaking which is expected to provide adequate, efficient,
economic and co-ordinated service has failed to do so even after twenty five
years have elapsed. It may be that some operators had adopted delaying tactics.
But the Hearing Authority under section 68-D of the Act should have taken
necessary steps to conclude the proceedings early. The delay of nearly a
quarter of a century is inexcusable. The draft scheme has virtually become
out-moded. We find that there has been clear disobedience of the provisions of
the Act.
The proviso to section 68-F(1-D) of the Act
which provides that where the period of operation of a permit in relation to
any area, route, or portion thereof specified in a scheme published under
section 68-C of the Act expires after such publication, such permit may be
renewed for a limited period, but the permit so renewed shall cease to be
effective on the publication of the scheme under sub-section (3) of section
68-D of the Act indicates the legislative intention regarding the maximum
period that may be spent on the proceedings which intervene between the date of
publication of the draft scheme under section 68-C of the Act and the
publication of the approved or modified scheme under section 68-D(3) of the
Act. It suggests that it cannot be longer than three to five years which is
usually the period during which a permit can be in force without renewal as
provided in section 58 of the Act. It could never have been in the
contemplation of Parliament that the period for approving a scheme with or
without modification or for rejecting it could be twenty five years as in this
case. The undesirable 740 effects of the inordinate delay in completing the
proceedings under section 68-D of the Act are many. Two of them are :
(i) it exhibits lack of interest on the part
of the administration in bringing into effect administrative decisions without
undue delay, and (ii) the public interest suffers as the members of the public
are denied normal stage carriage services of an improved kind because the
operators who are operating on temporary permits would have no incentive to
develop any enduring good will and naturally not interested in providing better
services.
The period of such uncertainty should not be
allowed to continue any longer in the instant case.
In Yogeshwar Jaiswal v. State Transport
Appellate Tribunal & Ors., [1985] 2 S.C.R. 790, this Court has explained
how inordinate delay in acting under section 68-D of the Act would prejudice
the public interest. Following the above decision in Phool Chand Gupta v.
Regional Transport Authority, Ujjain & Ors., [1985] 4 S.C.C. 190, and in
Shri Chand v. Government of U.P., Lucknow & Ors., [1985] 4 S.C.C. 169, this
Court has quashed the schemes published under section 68-C of the Act since
they had not been approved by the authority concerned under section 68-D of the
Act within a reasonable time. Following the three decisions referred to above
we quash the scheme which is the subject matter of this appeal and direct the
Hearing Authority under section 68-D of the Act not to proceed with the hearing
of the matter. It is now open to the Corporation to publish, if it so desires,
a fresh scheme under section 68-C of the Act. We, however, permit the
Corporation and others who are at present operating stage carriage vehicles on
the route in question pursuant to the permits issued under section 68-F(1-A) or
under section 68-F (1-C) of the Act as the case may be to operate their stage
carriages until 15.10.1986. If a fresh scheme is published under section 68-C
of the Act within that period it shall be open to the Corporation to apply for
fresh temporary permits under section 68-F(1-A) of the Act. On permits being
granted under section 68-F(1-A) of the Act all the permits now issued 741 under
section 68-F(1-A) or under section 68-F(1-C) of the Act shall come to an end.
Until a fresh draft scheme is published under section 68-C of the Act, it shall
be open to any person to make applications for a stage carriages permit under
Chapter IV of the Act. The Regional Transport Authority may also grant, if it
finds that it is necessary to do so in the public interest, temporary permits
under section 62 of the Act until the draft scheme is published.
This appeal is accordingly allowed. There
will be no order as to costs.
M.L.A. Appeal allowed.
Back
