GELL Vs. TAJA NOORA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The questions in the appeal are whether the Commissioner of Police, in refusing to grant license to the petitioner under Section 6 of Bombay Act VI of 1863, exercised the discretion vested in him by that section. If he did so, then unquestionably the Courts could not interfere: Attorney General V/s. Great Western Railway Co. (1877) 4 Ch. D. 735 at pp. 744, 745; Reg. V/s. Collins (1876) 2 Q.B.D. 30; Khando V/s. Appaji (1877) 2 Bom. 370 at. 373 and cases therein cited. But the ground of refusal should show that it was a ground to which the power extended: Queen V/s. Sykes (1875) 1 Q.B.D 52; Ex parte Smith. (1878) 1 Q.B.D. 374 In this case the power given is to refuse a license only when the Commissioner considers that the conveyance for which it is required is insufficiently found or otherwise unfit for the conveyance of the public, or that the applicant is open to certain objections. This clearly calls for the exercise of discretion in each particular case, and "an exercise of the power in the fetters of self-imposed rules, purporting to bind the autho rity in all cases would not be within the Act": Maxwell on Statutes, page 149 In Wood V. Widnes Corporation (1898) 1 Q.B. 463 the ultra vires action complained of had gone somewhat further and had attempted to enforce by notice the adoption of a particular system, and it was observed that had the notice merely been to the effect that it might be convenient to the public to know that a particular form of construction would satisfy the requirements of the Corporation, there could have been no harm in it. In the present case there is no question raised as to the invalidity of any such order prescribing uniformity, and the question here depends rather on the applicability of the principle laid down by Turner, L.J. in Tinkler V/s. Wandsworth Board of Works (1858) 2 DeG. And J. 261 that it is no less ultra vires to act in a particular case on such a general and self- imposed rule as to prescribe such a rule for uniform compliance in all cases. The question here, therefore, is not whether such a rule was made, but whe-there it was the reason on which the refusal of the license was based, excluding all consideration as to the individual fitness of each conveyance in question.

(2.) The adoption of principles approved by, or founded on the experience of, a predecessor in office is not necessarily open to objection, and might be desirable to maintain continuity. But the principles adopted must be strictly limited to the, attainment only of those requirements which the Act enables the authority to enforce, and, when those requirements are satisfied, cannot prescribe variance in the mode of compliance.

(3.) It has been urged in appeal that the requirements of Section 6 of the Act, (Bombay Act VI of 1863) extend only to the equipments of conveyances and that the words "otherwise unfit" must be construed as relating only to defects ejusdem generis with the defects in equipment, and that neither of the expressions used would permit any consideration of the motive power to be employed. That the words "otherwise unfit," as more general than the preceding words "insufficiently found," may be limited thereby, may be conceded. But the phrase "insufficiently found" constitutes as the ground of objection, not the "findings" or "equipments," but their "insufficiency," and therefore limits objections on the ground of unfitness to "insufficiency," which is the only mode of unfitness mentioned, and not to the objects in which unfitness may be detected, which would be merely tautological and nugatory. The word "unfitness" is generic in relation to insufficiency) but has no such connection with equipments. The phrase "otherwise unfit for the conveyance of the public" is, therefore, susceptible of being construed as "otherwise defective" for the purpose mentioned.