Judgment

BHAGWATI, J. : These petitions under Art. 32 of the Constitution are filed by the owners of Stage Carriage Services plying their buses on several routes in the districts of the State of Orissa impugning the provisions of Orissa Act XXXVI of 1947 and Orissa Act I of 1949 as violative of their fundamental rights. They raise a common question of law and can be disposed of by one judgment.

2. The State of Orissa embarked upon a scheme of Nationalised State Transport and, as a first step towards, it, enacted and Act styled the Orissa Motor Vehicles (Regulation of Stage Carriage and Public Carrier s Services) Act, 1947 (Orissa Act XXXVI of 1947), which modified the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Carriage and Public Carrier s Services in the Province of Orissa.

This Act envisaged the formation of a Joint-Stock Company in which the Central and the Provincial Governments shall together have controlling interests for providing in stages or in one stage a more efficient administration of the entire stage carriage and public carrier s services in the Province of Orissa.

Such a Company was to be authorized to run carriage and public carrier s services in the Province of Orissa to the exc