R.MOHANKUMAR Vs. THE GOVERNMENT OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These matters relate to public transport licensing and priorities in favour of public sector. The challenge is levied by the private operators.

(2.) The captioned writ appeals arise from a common judgment in different writ petitions which were heard together. One set of appeals is by the operators of private stage carriages, for short, the "private operators". The other set of appeals is by either the Government of Kerala, for short; "GOK", or the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation; "STC", for short. The tagged along solitary writ petition is filed by a private operator challenging the constitutional validity of section 99 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988; for short, the "1988 Act". Under challenge in that writ petition is also the Scheme finalized under the provisions of Chapter VI of that Act; the "Scheme", for short; which Scheme was also the subject matter of the writ petitions from which the writ appeals arise. The writ petition and the writ appeals also relate to the challenge by the private operators against certain amendments to the Kerala Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, for short, the "Rules". The learned single Judge upheld the Scheme, but declared that certain definition clauses in Chapter V of the Rules are invalid to the extent they result in the exclusion of private operators from operating certain classes of vehicles and amount to creating monopoly in favour of the STC for such classes of vehicles, through the process of the amendment to the Rules.

(3.) Attacking the validity of section 99 of the 1988 Act, the learned senior counsel for the petitioner in the captioned writ petition argued that the legislative competence to enact a statute in the nature of the 1988 Act is within the domain of the Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, and therefore, the embedded power in section 99 of the 1988 Act is essentially an authority to create a monopoly in favour of an STU, which is not conceived by the constitutional distribution of legislative power. It is therefore argued that section 99 of the 1988 Act is ultra vires the Constitution. Leading this argument forward, it is pointed out that the consequential impugned Scheme is extra - constitutional from its inception, in the light of the plea of the writ petitioner.