RAIGARH JUTE MILLS LIMITED Vs. EASTERN RLY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave against the order passed by the Railway Rates Tribunal, hereinafter called the tribunal, at Madras dismissing the appellant's complaint under S. 41 of the Indian Railways Act (9 of 1890), to be described hereinafter as the Act. The appellant, Raigarh Jute Mills Ltd., is a limited company owning jute mills which are situated in Raigarh in Madhya Pradesh. For the production of jute goods, the appellant has to bring raw material, viz., jute from many railway booking stations outside the State of Madhya Pradesh and there is no other means of transport except by rail both for bringing jute to the mills and for carrying the finished products to ports for export to foreign countries. In its complaint, the appellant has alleged that the railway administration had contravened the provisions of S. 28 of the Act and also that the charges levied by the railway administration for the freight of the appellant's goods were unreasonable and excessive. According to the appellant, the Assam Railway (now North-Eastern Railway) offered special rates for jute from certain stations in its zone to Kanpur and the basis of these rates was cheaper than that of the rates charged between Raigarh and some other stations on the East Indian Railway and the Bengal Nagpur Railway (now the Eastern Railway). Both the Eastern Railway and the North-Eastern Railway are State Railways and as such it was not open to either of them to mete out differential treatment. The appellant further contended that the other jute mills in West Bengal and Madras had facilities for direct shipment of their goods without carriage by rail to the ports, whereas, in the case of the appellant, the railway charged freight up and down in respect of the entire traffic of the appellant; inevitably the prices of the products of the appellant cannot be brought down to the competitive level for the purposes of export out of, or sale in, India. The appellant annexed to its complaint tables of goods rates of the two railways and urged that the unusual increase in the rates charged to the appellant was telling very heavily on the appellant as compared to other mills. According to the appellant, the freight rates should be on the basis prevailing in the year 1949 as the market had gone down to the level existing in that year. The appellant's complaint therefore prayed that, since the prevailing rates were unreasonable and excessive, the tribunal should issue directions for the introduction of fair and reasonable rates.

(2.) When the complaint was first filed, both the East Indian Railway with its headquarters at Calcutta and the Bengal-Nagpur Railway with its headquarters at Kidderpore were impleaded as respondents. Subsequently, the railway were reorganized and the complaint was then suitably amended with the result that the Eastern Railway with its headquarters at Calcutta was substituted for both the original respondents. Later on, the Union of India was impleaded as respondent 2 to the complaint.

(3.) Both the respondents denied the allegations made in the complaint. It was alleged on their behalf that the existing tariff rates for the movements of jute were reasonable and not excessive. It was also alleged by the respondents that, beyond drawing attention to special rates which applied to traffic from certain stations on the Assam Railway section of the North-Eastern Railway to Kanpur, the applicant had not submitted concrete evidence, facts or figures to make out even a prima facie case that the prevailing tariff rates for jute were unreasonable. The respondents' case was that the fact that the applicant's mill was situated far away from the port and as such had to incur additional cost had no relevancy or bearing on the case made out in the complaint and the same cannot be treated as a ground for consideration of any special rates. The Union of India has specifically raised the additional plea that even after reorganization the two railways in question were separate entities and were working in the different regions having more or less divergent local conditions, and so they did not constitute one railway administration within the meaning of the Act and S. 28 was therefore inapplicable.