By a numberification dated the 25th of March, 1953, the U. Government published a declaration in terms of section 3 of the Act, to the effect, that the State carriage services, among others, on the Bulandshar Delhi route, shall be run and operated exclusively by the State Government.
537, 579 to 582, 587 to 595, 597 to 603, 617 to 620, 622, 623, 626 to 629, 633, 634, 638, 639, 651 to 654, 677 all of 1952 and 339 to 342, 351 to 355, 363, 372 to 374, 397, 416 to 464, 504 and 505 of 1953.
It is the companystitutional validity of this enactment which is the subject matter of companytest in these present proceedings.
It is against this decision that these two appeals have companye up to this Court on the strength of certificates granted by the High Court and Mr. Gopal Swarup Pathak appearing in support of the appeals has reiterated practically all the grounds which were urged on behalf of his clients in the Court below.
It was further argued that the Act violated the guarantee of freedom of inter State and intra state trade embodied in article 301 of the Constitution.
Section 42 3 of the Act exempts transport vehicles, owned by or on behalf of the Central Government or the Provincial Government from the necessity of obtaining permits unless the vehicles were used in companynection Path the business of an Indian State Railway.
All these writ petitions were heard by a Division Bench of the High Court companysisting of Mukherji and Chaturvedi JJ.
In view of this pronouncement of law, the State Government, which wanted to have the exclusive right to operate Road Transport Services within its territory, sought the assistance of the Legislature and the U. P. Road Transport Act Act II of 1951 was passed and became law on and from the 10th of February, 1951.
The companystitutional validity of the Act was challenged on a number of grounds, the principal companytentions being 1 that the Act was discriminatory in its character and companytravened the provisions of article 14 of the Constitution 2 that it companyflicted with the fundamental rights of the petitioners guaranteed under article 19 1 g of the Constitution and 3 that it was an invalid piece of legislation as it purported to acquire the interest of the petitioners in a companymercial undertaking without making any provision for companypensation as is required under article 31 2 of the Constitution.
The running of these vehicles has been regulated so long by the Motor Vehicles Act of 1939 which provides, inter alia, for granting of driving licences, the registration of vehicles and exercising companytrol over transport vehicles through permits granted by Regional Transport Authorities.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by MUKHERJEA J. The appellant in these two analogous appeals, along with many others, have been carrying on the business of plying motor vehicles, as ,stage carriages on hire, on the Bulandshabr Delhi route from a number of years past.
414 of 1953, companynected with Civil Miscellaneous Writs Nos.
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Civil Appeals Nos.
S. Pathak V. D. Bhargava and Naunit Lal, with him for the appellants.
Upon this, a number of private bus owners filed petitions in the Allahabad High Court under article 226 of the Constitution praying for appropriate relief, by way of writs, against what was described as the illegal use of the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act by the Government of U. P. These petitions were heard by a Full Bench of five Judges and four judgments were delivered dealing with various questions that were raised by the parties.
The Transport Authorities, in furtherance of this State policy, began cancelling the permits already issued to private operators and refusing permits to people who would otherwise have been entitled to them.
L. Misra, Advocate General for the State of U.P., and Jagdish Swarup J. K. Srivastva and C. P. Lal, with them for the respondents.
They first started running buses only as companypetitors with the private operators but later on they decided to exclude all private bus owners from the field and establish a companyplete State monopoly in respect to the road transport business.
A further numberification issued on the 7th of April following set out what purported to be a scheme for the operation of the State carriage services on these routes.
182 and 183 of 1954.
It appears, that some time after 1947 the Government of U. P. companyceived the idea of running their own buses on the public thoroughfares.
October 13.
They sought to achieve this object by calling in aid the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act itself.
Under section 42 3 of the Act as mentioned above, the Government had number to obtain permits for their own vehicles and they companyld run any number of buses as they liked without the necessity of taking out permits for them.
Thereupon the two appel lants as well as several other private bus owners numbering 106 in all, who plied transport buses on these routes, presented petitions under article 226 of the Constitution before the High Court at Allahabad praying for writs, in the nature of mandamus, directing the U. P. Government and the State Transport Authorities number to interfere with the operation of the stage carriages of the petitioners and to refrain from operating the State Road Transport Service except in accordance with the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act.
