P KESAVA RAO Vs. STATE TRANSPORT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners in these several W. Ps. are owners of Public Carriers with permits to ply the vehicles in the area familiarly known as the Andhra area of the State of A. P. They question a notification issued by the State Transport Authority in exercise of the powers conferred by Rule 459 of the A. P. Motor Vehicles Rule. 1964 read with S. 79 of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT, 1988, 1939. By this notification all previous notifications on the subject were superseded and the maximum permissible laden weight of goods vehicles plying on roads in the State of A. P. was fixed at 12 topnes in the case of road other than National Highways in.the Andhra area while no such restriction was imposed in the case of roads other then National Highways in the Telangana area of the State of A. P. There was also no restriction in the case of National Highways whether it was in the Andhra area or in the Telangana area. The petitioners complain that the notification is discriminatory and there is no basis whatever for making a distinction between vechicles plying on roads in the Andhra area and vehicles plying on roads in the Telangana area. The Respondents filed a counter affidavit in which the discrimination was sought to be justified b.y the following statement : The National Highways and also the other roads in the Telangana area are wide and strong enough to permit the vehicles to carry the registered Laden Weight. The roads in the Andhra area other than the National Highways are normally narrow and at many places weak, and it considered not safe to allow the vehicles to carry more than 12 Metric tonnes on these roads"; As the statement appeared to b3 of a very vague and general charecter and as no material was placed before me to justify the distinction on the basis of the opinion of experts regarding the condition of the roads, I adjou- ned the case several times to enable the learned Govt. Pleader to produce the necessary records. An additional counter Affidavit has now been filed and certain files have also been produced before me.. In the additional counter affidavit the following statements relevant to the question at issus were made.

(2.) Accordingly and in supercessin of the orders contained in the Memo cited, Govt. hereby direct that goods vehicles be allowed to ply with the Registered Laden Weighf on all the national highways within the State including National Highway No. 4 goods vehicles carrying 12 tonnes load are also permitted to ply on all the other roads in the State.

(3.) The Transport Commissioner, and the C E (R & B) are requested to take necessary action in the matter in the light of the orders contained in para 2 above. (By order and in the name of the Governor of A P.,) T.N. Capoor, Dy. Secretary to Govt. Pursuant to G.O.Rt. No. 731, the State Transport Authority issued the impugned notification which is as follows; ORDER In exercise of the powers conferred by the rule 459 of the A.P. Motor Vehicles Rules, 1964 read with Sec. 79 of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT, 1988, 1939 and in supercession of the resolution of the State Transport Authority, A.P., in items 1 to 3 referred to in the subject the State Transport Authority A.P. hereby directs that the maximum permit Laden Weight of goods vehicle having not more than two axles on roads in Andhra and Telangana areas of the State of A.P. shall be as follows: - Andhra Area 1. On roads other than National Highways .. 12 tonnes. 2. On National Highways .. No restriction i.e. RLW will be equal to RLW of the vehicle. Telangana area: 1. On all roads No restriction i.e. RLW will be equal to RLW of the vehicle". It will be noticed at once that although the State Transport Authority's Notification was stated to be in pursuance of G.O.Rt. No. 731, it made a distinction between non-national high ways in the Andhra area and non national highways in the Telangana area while G.O.Rt. No. 731 made no such distinction and was applicable to all non-national highways throughout the State. The learned Govt. Pleader urged that though the expression used in the G.O. was "all the other roads in the State", the Govt. had in mind the roads in the Andhra area only and that it was to vehicles plying on those roads only that the restriction regarding maximum permissible laden weight was to be applicable There does not appear to be any basis for the argument, but assuming that the Government too intended to draw a distinction between the roads in the Andhra area and the reads in the Telangana area, the question still remains whether there is any reasonable basts for such a classification. Now the reasons for the classification of non-national highways into those of the Andhra area and those of the Telangana area, as stated in the counter affidavits filed on behalf of the respondents, are that the roads in the Andhra area, the culverts and the bridges, are narrow and weak, that the traffic along the roads is heavy and that the condition of the roads is not such as to permit the passage of vehicles of 15 tonnes load, whereas the roads in the Telangana area are not weak and narrow, the traffic is light and the roads are capable of withstanding the ' passage of vehicles of 15 tonnes load. It may easily be seen that the statements in the counter affidavits are vague and board generalisation that all the roads in the 12 districts of the Andhra area being lumped together as if the condition of all the roads and the traffic on those roads were the same jn all the 12 districts; similarly all the roads in the nine districts of the Telangana area are lumped together as if the condition of all the roads and the traffic on those roads are the same 1 do not think that there is any warrant for these generalisations. It is quite well known that the lorry traffic in the Andhra Districts other than Guntur" and Krishna particularly in the Districts of Ananthapur, Cucdapah, Chittor, Kurnool, Srikakulam and the upland taluks of Nellore, Ongole, Guntur and the two Godavari Districts is not much heavier than the lorry traffic in most of the Telangana districts. It cannot also be seriously disputed that the bearing capacity of the soil in areas other than the delta districts is much the same as the bearing capacity of the soil in Telangana districts. In fact, at one stage of the argument the learned Govt Pleader frankly stated that when the State Transport Authority and the Govt. referred to the condition of the roads in the Andhra area they appear to have had in mind the roads in the delta districts and the roads in the rest of the Andhra area. It is also apparent from the records produced before me by the respodetnts. I will presently point out that no efforts appears to have been made at any time to make a survey of the conditions of the reads in the various districts for the purpose of fixing the maximum laden Weight of the vehicles. No details, no facts and no figures are given in the affidavits or in the records produced before me by the respondents. All that we have is the broad generalisation to which I have already rcfferedr. There in nothing to indicate that even a sample survey of the conditions of roads in the various districts was ever undertaken. I will now refer to the records on which the learned Govt. Pleader placed reliance. One striking feature of the records placed before me is that not one of them is of a date prior to the issue of G.O. Rt. No. 731, and the notification issued by the State Transport Authority. Some of the documents placed before me have come into existence subsequent to the filing of the W.P. though I do not propose to attach less weight to those documents for that reason. The 1st document is the proceedings of a Meeting of the Chief Engineer, R & B, the Transport Commissioner and the Dy. and Asst. Secretaries to Govt., held on 26-2 70. The proceedings referred to a question raised by the Krishna District Lorry Owners Association in regard to the maximum Laden weight. The Chief Engineer, R & B explained that heavy loads had to be prohibited on certain national and State Highways due to (1) weak culverts (2) -weak bridges (3) insufficient metal content and crust of roads. The C E. pointed out that some roads had been improved and that there could be no objection to permit loads upto 15 tonnes on those roads. The roads mentioned by him were the Vijayawada-Masulipatnam road and the AnakapalJi-Chittivalasa road. In segard to some other roads the C.E. poin!ed out that loads beyond 12 tonnes capacity could not be permitted on those roads at present. The roads which he mentioned were Vijayawada-Kotha- gudem. Guntur-Nagarjunasagar, Guntur-Nandyal, Chittoor-Tirupathi, Vijayawada-Narapur, Nellore-Kurnoo), Jaggampet-Kakinada and Chittoor Naidupet roads. These proceedings do not indicate that any general survey of the conditions of the roads in all the Andhra Districts was made. It only shows that in respect of certain roads which were expressly mentioned in the representation of the Krishna District Lorry owners Association the condition of the roads was stated to be satisfactory or unsatisfactory as the case was. Regarding the rest of the roads in the Andhra area nothing was said. Of the roads mentioned in the representation the Vijayawada-Masulipatnam and the Anakapalli-Chittivalasa roads were stated to be in a condition which would permit the plying of vehicles with loads upto 15 tonnes. The proceedings, therefore, do not justify the generalisation contained in the affidavits and implicit in the notification of the State Transport Authority. The next document on which reliance was placed by the learned Govt. Pleader was the letter dt. 9-10-1971 from the C.E. to the Transport Commissioner.