JUDGMENT :

Raghubar Dayal, J.

1. The appellants, the Trustees of the Port of Madras, hereinafter called the Board, appeal against the order of the High Court of Madras allowing the writ petitions filed under Art. 226 of the Constitution by each of the respondents and issuing a writ of mandamus directing the appellants to forbear from enforcing the scale 'E' rates of the Madras Port Trust Scale of Rates and from requiring the signing of the Shore Labour Requisition Form from the steamer agent.

2. The respondents, who are either partnership firms or limited companies, carry on the business of steamer agents at Madras. The Board, with the sanction of the Central Government, made amendments to the Madras Port Trust Scale of Rates in 1958. By the amendment, scale 'E' was added under Chapter V. It was to come into force from March 1, 1958. The scale laid down charges to be paid by masters, owners or agents of vessels in respect of Port Trust labour requisitioned and supplied but not fully or properly utilised. The charges, for the sake of brevity, may be said to be on account of the labour of the Port Trust, Madras, rendered idle on account of some lapse on the part of the ship. owners or on account of extra payment to labour for the simultaneous working of more than one work at the vessel's hatch. The labour requisition Form to be submitted by the steamer-agents was also modified and the new form contained an undertaking on the part of the steamer-agents for the payment of the charges laid down in the Board's scale of rates from time to time in respect of labour rendered idle or not properly utilised and also for working more than one hook simultaneously at the hatch. These amendments in the scale of rates were made by the Board in the exercise of its power under s. 42 of the Madras Port Trust Act, 1905 (Mad. Act 11 of 1905), hereinafter called the Act. This section empowers the Board to frame a scale of rates at which and a statement of the conditions under which any of the services specified in the various clauses of the section shall be performed by the Board or by a person to whom any service has been relinquished under s. 41-A of the Act. Thereafter, the respondents, viz., the steamer-agents, filed petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution, in the High Court of Madras, and prayed for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the Board not to enforce these rates and not to require the filling in of the new form. They contended that (1) the ship-owners and the steamer-agents cannot be made liable for charges for shore labour employed in the receiving or removal of cargo and such charges must be borne by the consignee (II) s. 39 of the Act provided for -the performance of services by the Board and the other sections provided for the imposition and recovery of rates for the services performed for the vessel and services performed for the goods. Services in the former category are to be paid for on behalf of the carrier i. e., by the master, ship- owner or the steamer-agent, and the services in the latter category constitute a liability on the consignee; (iii) the Board has power to impose and recover rates only for services rendered and that they have no right to impose charges by way of compensation for default or to collect charges from masters, owners or agents of vessels in respect of operations not properly falling under the head of discharge of cargo from the vessel; (iv) prior to 1914, the steamer-agents acted as landing-agents for removing cargo from ship to pier and collected for these services from the consignees a separate charge known as 'landing charge' in addition to the freight. When the quays were constructed and cargo came to be landed there, the Board took over the landing of goods and collected quay dues instead of 'landing charges' which were wholly paid by I he consignees. These quay dues later on merged in the harbour dues' collected by the Board from the consignees; (v) usually, the steamer agent informs th