ABDUL MOHI SIDDIQUI Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order will also govern the disposal of M. P. Nos. 18 and 32, both of 1964.

(2.) THE identical question raised in these three petitions is as regards the validity of the rules made by the Government under Section 68 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, (hereinafter called the Act) for the constitution of State Transport Appellate Authorities for the various regions of the State of Madhya Pradesh and, in particular of the rule authorising the Chairman of the State Trainsport Appellate Authority to constitute Benches "consisting of a single membar or two or more members" for performing or discharging the powers and functions of the Appellate Authority.

(3.) THE petitioner in each case obtained from the Regional Transport Authority, Bhopal, permits for the running of stage carriages on certain routes. The unsucesssful applicants, being dissatisfied with the grants made by the Regional Transport Authority, have preferred appeals before the State Transport Appellate Authority. The petitioners are respondents in those appeals. Their prayer in these petitions is that Rules 67-A (1) (a-2) and (a-4) of the Kawaid Motor Gadiyan Riyasat Bhopal, 1941, be declared ultra vires, and the State of Madhya Pradesh and the Appellate Authority be restrained by the issue of a suitably direction from giving effect to those rules. The petitioners also pray that a writ of Mandamus be issued to the Appellate Authority for the hearing of the appeate in which they are respondents by the Appellate Authority composed of all the members constituting the Appellate Authority and not by any one member thereof.