K S ACHUTHAN Vs. STATE OF MYSORERESENTED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Mysore State Road Transport Corporation constituted under the provisions of the Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950, published on August 18, 1964, a draft scheme under Section 68-C of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 for the operation of its services on certain routes in the Districts of Coorg, South Kanara and Chikmagalur. This scheme which will be referred to as the Mangalore Scheme in the course of this judgment, was approved by the Chief Minister under Section 68-D of the Act on July 28, 1967. The approved scheme is impeached in these ten writ petitions on more than one ground by persons who were operating on some one or the other of the notified routes enumerated in the approved scheme.

(2.) On behalf of the petitioners six submissions were made. The first was that there was no application of the judicious mind by the Chief Minister to the question whether the scheme was in public interest and also to the question whether it results in an efficient, adequate economical and properly co-ordinated transport services. The second was that the complete exclusion of private operators from some of the notified routes was not in public interest. The third submission was that the approved scheme stands vitiated by reason of the fact that the Chief Minister who accorded his approval to it was determined to implement the policy of nationalisation and was so biased. The fourth submission was that there was long delay in according approval to the scheme and that the approval accorded in the year 1967 on the basis of the situation which obtained in 1964 vitiated the scheme. The fifth and sixth submissions covered the question whether the provisions of Sections 68-C and 68-H invaded the fundamental right guaranteed by Articles 19 and 31 of the Constitution; but at one stage these two submissions were withdrawn.

(3.) The first question to which we should address ourselves is whether there was no application of the mind of the Chief Minister when he gave his approval to the scheme under Section 68-D to the question whether the approved scheme would make available to the general public and efficient, adequate, economical and properly co-ordinated road transport service on the notified routes and whether for that reason that scheme was in public interest. In support of the argument that that fact of the matter did not receive adequate consideration from the Chief Minister, it was said that it was overlooked by the Chief Minister that the proposed scheme disclosed prima facie that it would neither work efficiently nor economically and that the proposed transport operation by the Corporation was neither adequate nor properly co-ordinated. It was said that no scheme could have been approved by the Chief Minister under Section 68-D unless the scheme which was initiated by the Corporation demonstrated the possibility of an adequate, efficient, economical and properly co-ordinated transport service and that it should have been obvious to the Chief Minister that there was no such possibility.