INDRATH SAKCHIT BEROJGAR MOTOR PARIVABAN SAHKARI SAMITTEE (UNLIMITED) AND OTHERS Vs. THE STATE OF BIHAR & OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are holders of temporary permits for plying public buses on the Arrah -Sasaram route and have filed this writ application for quashing the order dated 25.5.81 passed by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Bihar, Patna by which the order granting the temporary permits to the petitioners has been declared as bad in law and has been accordingly set aside. The Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (for brevity 'the Corporation') published a scheme under Sec. 68 (c) of the Motor Vehicle Act (to be referred to as 'the Act') for nationalisation of the said route -Arrah -Sasaram portion, subject to the modification that the Corporation shall ply five direct express services, the timing of which was to be adjusted in consultation with Arrah -Sasaram Light Railway and a portion of the route between Arrah -Bikramganj was to be treated as 'Free Zone' for the existing private operators plying in between Arrah -Dehri via Bikramganj and Nasriganj. It was mentioned in the said notification that in case in pursuance of the monopoly scheme of the Corporation, private operators expressed their inability to ply a curtailed services, the Corporation shall operate on that route. It was also given out in the said notification that the Corporation shall operate additional service on notified route or on other different portion of the routes according to the local needs. Copy of this notification, so published, has been annexed to this writ application and marked as Annexure '1'.

(2.) Objections were invited by the State Government and ultimately the State Government approved the scheme of the route Arrah -Sasaram under Sec. 68(D) of the Act with a condition that the Corporation shall ply only 5 Up and 5 Down trips as direct express services on the said route. Subsequently, in view of the Arrah -Sasaram Light Railway being closed down and there being no means of conveyance on the said route, the number of trips was raised to 21 up and 21 down services from 5 up and down trips. The Corporation probably did not cope with the increased public demand of bus services and the Regional Transport Authority, on the direction issued by the Government (annexure '2') created 10 more vacancies for grant of temporary permits on the aforesaid route (Arrah -Sasaram route). It is these 10 temporary vacancies, which the present ten writ petitioners were allowed to fill up and temporary permits were issued to them for plying buses on the said route, although the Corporation objected to the grant of temporary permits to them, before the Chairman, South Bihar Regional Transport Authority, as it took the view that the scheme approved for the route -Arrah -Sasaram as direct and express services were not for the exclusion of the private operators and so, the temporary permits were granted to the petitioners.

(3.) Having lost their case before the South Bihar Regional Transport Authority, the Corporation proposed to make some modification in the existing scheme on the route from direct services to an ordinary service. Copy of the proposed amendment by the Corporation has been annexed to this writ petition as annexure '3' in which it was given out that after the expiry of the permits issued to the private operators, no further permit would be granted nor existing temporary permits, if any shall be renewed thereafter.