ABDUL RAHIM Vs. CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two petitions, filed under Article 228 of the Constitution of India, raise identical question for decision, and it will be convenient to dispose of them in a common judgment.

(2.) The petitioner in the former of the petitions was a mechanic in the service of the Road Transport Department of the erstwhile State of Hyderabad ; and the petitioner in the other petition was a conductor. The respondent in both the petitions is the Chief Executive Officer of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (hereinafter referred to, for the sake of convenience, as the Corporation),

(3.) For a better appreciation of the contentions raised before us, it will be convenient to set out in brief outline the antecedent history of the Corporation. Originally, the Road Transport Department of the erstwhile Hyderabad State was providing road transport services in the territories which formed part of that State. The Department was there functioning as a State Transport Undertaking under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles (Hyderabad Amendment) Act, 1956. While so, the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 was enacted by Parliament and became law on 31/08/1958. Section 3 of that Act provided that as from the appointed day, there should be added to the State of Andhra the area comprised in about eight of the Districts of the former State of Hyderabad (popularly called the Telangana area). By virtue of the provisions of that section, the said territory ceased to form part of the State of Hyderabad and became the part of the State of Andhra, which has been re-named the State of Andhra Pradesh. The Road Transport Department) which had till then been functioning as a statutory authority for the Hyderabad State began to function as a State Transport Undertaking for the State of Andhra Pradesh under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, as amended. The Constitution (First) Amendment Act, 1951, which came into force on 18/06/1951, preserved to the State the power to make any law relating to the carrying on by the State, or by a Corporation, owned or controlled by the State, of any trade, business, industry or service, whether to the exclusion, complete or partial, of citizens or others. After the coming into being of the State of Andhra Pradesh, the State Government established a Road Transport Corporation under the Road Transport Corporations Act (64 of 1950), called the Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation, with effect from 11/01/1958. The Corporation was empowered to take over the management of the erstwhile Road Transport Department. The result of these legislative measures, coupled with the formation of the Corporation under the Central enactment, was to transform what was till then a Department of the Government into an autonomous body.