V.R. RAMAKRISHNAN, SRI RAMAKRISHNA BUS SERVICE AND ORS. Vs. THE STATE OF TAMIL NADU, REPRESENTED BY THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT, HOME DEPARTMENT AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) As the questions involved in all the writ petitions are the same, they are dealt with together. The facts in all the cases are substantially the same. Hence it is enough to set out the facts in the first of these cases, namely W.P. No. 3558 of 1974.

(2.) The petitioner in W.P. No. 3558 of 1974 is operating a stage carriage on the route Madras (Broadway) to Kancheepuram since the year 1952. A draft scheme of nationalisation was proposed by the Tamil Nadu State Transport Department in regard to this route on 22nd April, 1968. The said draft scheme has been approved by the State of Tamil Nadu under Section 68-D of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, hereinafter referred to as the Act, and published in the Tamil Nadu Gazette dated 2nd July, 1974. As a result of the publication, the said scheme has become an approved scheme under Section 68-D(3) of the Act.

(3.) The petitioner had earlier impugned the validity o f the proceedings initiated under Chapter IV-A of the Act by way of a writ petition in this Court as also in the Supreme Court but without success. The particulars of those proceedings are not, however, relevant for a decision in these writ petitions. During the pendency of those proceedings, as a result of the orders of the Court, the petitioner was plying his vehicle on the route under temporary permits as his pucca permit had expired by efflux of time and no renewal has been ordered. The petitioner's current temporary permit is valid up to the period of 30th November, 1974.