ADAMBHAI RANABHAI Vs. REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY RAJKOT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition under Article 227 is directed against the order at Ex. 4 dated 27th April 1967 by respondent No 1 The Regional Transport Authority Rajkot hereinafter referred to as the tribunal.

(2.) The short facts which have given rise to this petition are as under :

(3.) At the outset Mr. Desai for the Corporation raised a preliminary objection. He argued that the tribunal being a creature of the statute it could not go into the question of the vires of a statutory provision and as this Court was only exercising superintendence powers under Article 227 over the tribunal it would not be open to this Court also to go into the question of the vires of the statutory provision. This argument seems to be based on the decision of the Supreme Court in Venkatraman & Co. v. State of Madras A. I. R. 1966 S. C. 1089 where at page 1099 their Lordships held that the proposition that an authority constituted under the Act could not unless expressly so authorized question the validity of the Act or any provisions thereof was sound and was also supported by authority. At page 1100 their Lordships considered certain observations in the earlier decision in Bengal Immunity Co. Ltd. v. State of Bihar A. I. R. 1955 S. C. 661 where Venkataraman Ayyar J. had observed in the context of the maintainability of a writ of prohibition on page 726 as under:-