MOVVA VEERAYYA Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal is directed against the judgment of our learned brother Mr. Justice Bhimasankaram refusing to quash an order of the Government confirming that of the Central Road Traffic Board, Andhra State.

(2.) The material facts on which the decision in this appeal has to be based may be set out. The petitioner was one of the ninety-one applicants be-tore the Regional Transport Authority, Guntur, for the grunt of a Stage-carriage permit on the route Guntur to Bepalle. He was successful in obtaining the permit from the Regional Transport Authority. The 4th respondent along with some other unsuccessful applicants appealed against that order to the Central Road Traffic Board, Andhra State. The Chairman of the Board alone heard the appeal as the other members thereof did not turn up in time to attend the meeting. After hearing all the parties, he set aside the order in favour of the appellant and directed the grant of the permit to the 4th respondent. The appellant carried a revision to the Government invoking its jurisdiction under Section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act. The Government, taking into consideration the relevant facts, dismissed the revision petition. It was to remove that order on certiorari that the appellant filed the writ petition giving rise to tins appeal.

(3.) The main contention raised before the learned Judge was that the order of the Central Road Traffic Board, which was passed by the Chairman alone, should be deemed to be honest and as such void as he had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal singly. That argument was repelled by the learned Judge for the reasons given by him in his judgment. That argument is repeated before us. 3. What is urged by Sri Kuppuswami, the learned counsel for the appellant, is that the Central Road Traffic Board was constituted by the State Government, that by virtue of the powers conferred on it under Section 44 of the Motor Vehicles Act, the powers and functions exercisable by that Board could be discharged only by the whole body as constituted and it was incompetent for a single member to purport to discharge any of its functions, and in this view the rule which enabled the Chairman alone to conduct the meeting, in certain contingencies is ultra vires the rule-making power of the Government as it is repugnant to the main provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act.