Judgment

DAS GUPTA, J. : When total charges payable in respect of goods traffic carried by a Railway are increased by the Railway Administration on the basis of terminals fixed by the Central Government in pursuance of S. 32 of the Indian Railways Act, has the Railway Rates Tribunal jurisdiction to investigate the reasonableness of the charge as thus increased? That is the question raised in this appeal. The first respondent, the Upper Doab Sugar Mills Ltd., manufactures sugar in its Mills situated at Shamli. The sugarcane needed as its raw material has to be brought by the Company from different places in the neighbourhood. It is in this connection that the appellant-Railway Company s services are required. The Railway Company carries the sugarcane in trucks from several stations on its line, to Shamli. As the Mills premises are situated a short distance away from the station platform the Mills had at the very time when it started functioning, a siding agreement with the Rly., Company so that the trucks carrying the sugarcane are ultimately brought into the Mills siding from where the unloading takes place. The nearest point of the Mills siding from the station platform at Shamli i