The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and the Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, in relation to the grant of temporary permits and the power to fix tentative timings for State Transport Undertakings (STUs). The court emphasized the availability of revisional remedies before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal for aggrieved parties.

Heard both sides. The petitioner in the first writ petition is a stage carriage operator at Vellitiruppur and the petitioner in the second writ petition is another stage carriage operator at Salem. In these two writ petitions, the challenge is to the constitutional validity of proviso to Rule 248(1) of the Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 and to declare the same as unconstitutional.

2. In the first writ petition, notice of motion was ordered on 07. 1998. The second writ petition was admitted on 18. 1998 and directed to be heard along with the first writ petition. On behalf of the respondent State, a common counter affidavit dated 30.8.2006 has been filed.

3. Before going into the rival contentions, it is necessary to extract the Rule in question, viz., Rule 248(1), which reads as follows:-

248. Stage carriage - fixing Schedule of timing. -(1) The Transport Authority may, if no schedule of timings is already fixed or approved for a stage carriage or a service of a stage carriages on any route, either on its own motion or on an application made to it in writing, by a general or special order, fix and approve a schedule of timings for the particular stage carriage or the service of stage carriages in consultation with the applicant and the persons providing transport facilities on the route or sectors thereof and while approving a schedule of timings, on an application made to it in writing, it may approve the same with such modification as it deem necessary. It shall not be necessary for the Transport Authority to send individual notice of the timings conference to the operators concerned and it shall be sufficient compliance of this provision, if the notice giving the existing and proposed schedule of timings and the time, date and place at which the subject will be discussed, is affixed on the notice board of the office of the Transport Authority and copies of the notice sent to the applicant and the concerned S.T.U.and bus owners Association of the district through which the route passes:

Provided that in the case of stage carriages of State Transport Undertakings tentative timings may be fixed by the Transport Authority without following the procedure laid down in the sub-rule in the case of introduction of the Stage Carriages on temporary permit."

(Emphasis Added)

4. Mr.M.Palani, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that an application for stage carriage permit is provided under section 70 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short the MV Act). Section 71 provides for the procedure for the Regional Transport Authority (for short RTA) in considering the application for stage carriage permit. Section 72 provides for the consideration of the application and also the guidelines for granting the stage carriage permit by the RTA. Section 87 of the MV Act provides for power to the RTA as well as the STA to grant temporary permits without following the procedure laid down in Section 80 of the MV Act. Therefore, Section 87 exempts the authorities from following the procedure for grant of permit in terms of section 80.

5. The learned counsel after referring to the provisions submitted that fixation of timing is an essential requirement for grant of permit. But in the guise of the power to frame rules provided under the Act, the respondent State had exceeded its limits and has granted a blanket power to the authorities to grant not only temporary permit to the State Transport Undertakings (for short the STUs) but also granted arbitrary power in fixing tentative timings to the STUs alone. This facility has given a cutting edge to the STUs and it is clearly arbitrary and unconstitutional. In effect, such a rule making power is not available to the State Government. It virtually deregulates the provisions of the Act whereas the MV Act is conceived to regulate the operation of motor vehicles in the State of Tamil Nadu. Not only the proviso to Rule 248(1) is unconstitutional but it is also ultra vires of the MV A