Aggrieved by a demand raised by the District Transport Officer, Dhanbad in terms of Section 194 read with Section 199 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, the present writ petitions have been filed. In all the cases, a common question of law is involved and therefore, all three writ petitions have been heard together and are disposed of by this common order. The facts in W.P.(C) No. 3782 of 2013 have been noticed in detail for deciding the issue involved in the cases.

W.P.(C) No. 3782 of 2013

2. Briefly stated, the facts of the case are that, the petitioner-company is a Government company registered under section 617 of the Companies Act. It sales coal to various consumers through eauction and the successful bidders are provided the delivery orders. The successful bidders in their turn arrange vehicles for transporting the coal purchased by them. The empty trucks are initially weighed at weighbridge of the petitioner-company and after the trucks are loaded with coal it is again weighed at the weighbridge to ascertain the quantity of coal dispatched. It is stated that the dispatched quantity of coal is assessed as per RLW weight on the basis of R.C. Book, Tax Token etc. provided by the truck drivers. A letter was issued by the Deputy Commissioner, Dhanbad requiring the petitioner-company to provide details of vehicles engaged in transportation of coal. Subsequently, the demand notices directing the petitioner-company to pay fine for violation of Section 113 and Section 114 of the Motor Vehicles Act were raised. Aggrieved, the petitioner has filed three writ petitions against three different demand notices issued to it. The details of the demand raised are as under:-

Sl. No.	Case No.	Demand Notice/Letter No. and date	Amount
1.	W.P.(C) No. 3782 of 2013	551 dt. 21.05.2013	19,04,000/-
2.	W.P.(C) No. 2395 of 2012	5233 dt. 30.09.2010	27,42,300/-
3.	W.P.(C) No. 3788 of 2013	594 dt. 05.06.2013	2,86,90,000/-

3. A counter-affidavit has been filed by the District Transport Officer, Dhanbad on behalf of the respondent nos. 1 & 2 stating that the petitioner being a company is liable to be prosecuted under Section 199 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 for the offence committed by it or its agent or a person in charge or responsible for the conduct of business of the company. The weighbridge used for weighment of the coal for internal transportation belongs to the petitioner-company and thus, the petitioner-company has caused or allowed a motor vehicle to be driven in contravention of Sections 113/114/115 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and thus, it is liable to be proceeded under the provisions of the Act. The petitioner-company has been using the vehicles allegedly belonging to private persons for internal transportation of the coal. The petitioner-company itself has provided details of the weighbridge and the dispatch of quantity. It is stated that the power of compounding under Section 200 of the Motor Vehicles Act is vested with the District Transport Officer.

4. Heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the documents on record.

5. Mr. Indrajit Sinha, the learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the impugned demand contained in letter dated 21.05.2013, 30.09.2010 and 05.06.2013 is liable to be quashed on the ground that there is no determination of the liability under Section 194 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The impugned demand notice merely states that on comparison of RLW weight with the computed details, it has been found that vehicles were overloaded with coal. In any event, the provision under Section 200 of the Motor Vehicles Act can be resorted to only when the alleged overloader agrees for compounding of the offence and not otherwise. Since, in the present case the petitioner-company has denied its liability, the District Transport Officer, Dhanbad cannot force the petitioner t