Judgment

MATHEW, J. :- In these Civil Appeals and petitions for special leave to appeal the questions for consideration are practically the same. They are, therefore, disposed of by this common judgment.

2. The appellants filed petitions before the High Court of Bombay (at Nagpur and Bombay) challenging in validity of a scheme framed under Section 68-C of the Motor Vehicles Act. 1939 (hereinafter referred to as the Act ). The High Court dismissed the petitions and these appeals and petitions for special leave to appeal are directed against those orders.

3. Section 68-C under which the scheme was framed occurs in Chapter IVA of the Act, That chapter was added by Act 100 of 1956 which came into effect from February 16, 1957. The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation hereinafter called the Corporation ) is a corporation established for the whole of the State of Maharashtra under Section 3 of the Road transport Corporation Act, 1950, and it is a State Transport undertaking within the meaning of Section 68-A (b) of the Act.

4. By the scheme the Corporation proposes to operate stage carriage and contract carriage service in the entire State of Maharashtra and on all routes and portions thereof falling within the said area to the complete exclusion of all other persons subject to the exceptions mentioned in the scheme. The scheme as approved, was published in the Gazettee dated November 29, 1973 and was to come into force with effect from January 1, 1974. It was the validity of the scheme that the appellants challenged before the High Court by their petitions.

5. In those appeals and petitions for special leave to appeal, we are concerned only with two questions, namely, whether the area in relation to which the scheme has been framed should have been specified by a notification in the official gazette by the State Government under Section 2 (1) of the Act; and whether the scheme was invalid for the reason that it did not specify the minimum and maximum number of vehicles to be put on a route as also the minimum and maximum trips on each route.

6. It was submitted for the appellants that no valid scheme under Section 68-C could be framed without specifying the area in relation to which the scheme has been famed by a notification by the State Government in the Official gazette. This submission is founded on Section 2 (1) of the Act which was inserted in the Act by Act 56 of 1969 :

"2. In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context,-

(1) area in relation to any provision of this Act, means such area as the State Government may, having regard to the requirements of that provisions, specify by notification in the Official Gazette."

7. Section 68-C did not require that the area in relation to which the scheme has been framed should have been specified by notification in the official gazette by the State Government before the insertion of S. 2 (1) by the Amendment Act 56 of 1969. Therefore, the question for consideration is whether, after its insertion in the Act, it was necessary for the State Government to have specified the area by notification in the official gazette in order that the Corporation may frame a scheme in relation to that area.

8. The appellants contended that wherever the word area occurs in any of the provisions of the Act, the meaning to be given to the word in the one given in Section 2 (1) unless there is something repugnant in the context or subject-matter and, as there is nothing in the context of or subject-matter in Section 68-C, which, by necessary implications, excludes the meaning given in the definition clause to the word area occurring in the section, that meaning must be assigned to the word.

9. On the other hand, the learned Attorney General, appearing for the Corporation, submitted that the definition clause does not require the State Government to specify the area by a notification in the gazettee merely because the word area occurs in a section of the Act. He submitted