ANDHRA PRADESH STATE ROAD TRANSPORT CORPORATION GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH Vs. M GURIVI REDDY:M GURIVI REDDY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are two batches of 19 appeals each. One set of appeals has been filed by Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (A.P.S.R.T.C.) and the other set of appeals has been filed by the State of Andhra Pradesh. Both the sets of appeals are directed against the judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court dated 22-11-1985. All the appeals can be disposed of by a common judgment.

(2.) The respondents in both sets of appeals are transport operators, who were plying their stage carriages on various routes in Cuddapah district. on 17-5-77, the APSRTC gazetted about 70 draft schemes under which they proposed to ply their buses to the complete exclusion of other private operators plying their vehicles in the above district. Naturally the private operators raised objectons to these schemes. It appears that till about 1981 the Government was also lukewarm about the process of nationalisation. However, a new Government was formed in 1983, which took up for hearing the objections to the draft scheme published in 1977. The Transport Minister passed an order approving the scheme. The private operators filed a batch of writ petitions and the High Court, vide its orders dated 16-12-83, quashed the approved schemes with a direction that the operators should be heard afresh and the change in circumstances should be taken into account before finalising the schemes. On 24-4-84, fresh objections were invited. The Transport Minister heard these objections. The operators objected to his hearing the objections, alleging that he had taken illegal gratification from some of the operators promising to defer the schemes. In the meantime there was a change in Government but the Transport Minister continued in the new Government with the same portfolio and he approved the scheme on 9-9-1984. A few days later, the new Government resigned and the previous Chief Minister came back to power. Thereafter, about a year later, on 7-8-85, the Government issued various Government orders approving the schemes.

(3.) In August 1985, about 80 writ petitions were filed in the High Court. These were disposed of by an order dated 22-11-1985. By the said order, the High Court dismissed 60 writ petitions on the short ground that these petitioners had not approached the Court with clean hands and were not entitled to the exercise of the Court's discretionary powers under Article 226 of the Constitution. This was because these writ petitions had contained an allegation that the writ petitioners either directly or through their representatives had given bribes to the Minister in question for deferring the scheme of nationalisation. The other 22 writ petitions were, however, allowed by the High Court by the same order dated 22-11-1985 common to all the writ petitions.