HINDUSTAN AERONAUTICS LTD Vs. STATE OF MYSORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The common question raised in these three writ petitions preferred under Art.226 or 227 of the Constn., is whether the motor vehicles owned and operated by the petitioners fall within the categorisation of ' contract carriages' or,'omnibuses', as defined under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1929. Since the facts leading to these petitions are almost similar, it wquld be convenient to,dispose them of by the following order.

(2.) The petitioner in WP.2124 of 1973 is Indian Telephone Industries Ltd; the petitioner in WP.2180 of 1973 is Hindustan Machine Tools Ltd; and the petitioner in WP.542 of 1972 is Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., Bangalore. These are all Companies (called herein 'the Company') in the public sector incorporated either under the Companies Act of 1913, or under the Companies Act, 1956. The Company owns and operates contract carriages for the benefit of its employees to enable them to come to the workspoit punctually and return to their places of residence after finishing their work. But it is not free of charge. Those who have been afforded with the facility of conveyance, have to pay certain charges. These charges are deducted at the source from their salaries. The charges thus collected, is stated tq be insufficient to meet the operation costs of the fleet of buses and it is being subsidised by the Company.

(3.) Since the vehicles are covered by 'contract carriage permits', the Company is hitherto paying motor vehicles tax of Rs.35 per seat. It was the case of the Company that its vehicles are wrongly classified as contract carriages, though they are in fact 'omnibuses'. It therefore made an application to the Regional Transport Officer for alteration of the categorisation of its vehicles from 'contract earrings' to 'omnibuses'. The Regional Transport Officer rejected the application, against which the Company preferred an appeal to the Commissioner for Transport. One of the, contentions urged in the appeal wa,s that the Company was recovering only nominal charges from its employees for affording them the transport facilities and not plying the vehicles for hire, or reward under a contract express of implied, and therefore the, vehicles shall be categorised as 'omnibuses'. The Commissioner rejected that contention by observing that the registering authority is not concerned with the question whether the hire is adequate or inadequate and it is concerned only with the question whether there is any hire at all. The Commr. was of the opinion that the motive for running the contract carriage is irrelevant for consideration, and so long as the Company recovers certain charges from its employees for the use of the vehicles, they shall be categorised as 'contract cariages'. In the appeal preferred by the petitioner in WP.542 of 1972, there was one other point urged, the correctness of which I will consider later in this order.