Balakrishna Ayyar, J.-Krishnaswamy Mudaliar the appellant in W.A. No. 56 of 1956 had a permit which authorised him to run a bus M.D.J. 971 between Vellore and Tiruvannamalai. On 1st December, 1953 the Regional Transport Officer, Vellore, varied the conditions of the permit which Krishnaswamy Mudaliar held so as to enable him to run the bus up to Thanipedi. In effect this gave him an extended route of 20 miles. Similarly Kumaraswami the appellant in W.A. No. 57 of 1956 held a permit which enabled him to operate bus No. M.D.J. 1012 between Vellore and Tiruvannamalai. On 15th January, 1954 the Regional Transport Officer, Vellore extended the scope of the permit so as to enable the bus to be plied along a further stretch of eleven miles to Thandrampet. Being aggrieved by the extensions which the Regional Transport Officer had granted to these two individuals one Pachia Pillai moved the State Government to revise the orders of the Regional Transport Officer. The Government dismissed the revision petitions. Thereupon Pachia Pillai filed two Writ petitions, Nos. 350 and 351 of 1954 in this Court to quash the orders of the Regional Transport Officer and the Government.

Both the petitions were heard by Rajagopala Ayyangar, J. Following the decision of a Bench of this Court in W.A. No. 107 of 1955 he held that the Regional Transport Officer had no jurisdiction to extend the scope of the permits in the manner he had done. He therefore set aside the orders of the Regional Transport Officer and the Government. Krishnaswamy Mudaliar and Kumaraswamy Mudaliar then filed two separate appeals. These came on for hearing before Krishnaswamy Nayudu, and Ramaswami, JJ., and they took the view that the decision in W.A. No. 107 of 1955 required reconsideration and so referred the appeals to a Full Bench. This is how the matter comes before us.

The Motor Vehicles Act of 1939 is a Central Act, Act IV of 1939. It has been amended in important respects by the legislature of this State and to these reference will presently be made. The principal Act set up three authorities to deal with privately owned transport vehicles and stage carriages, terms which include the buses which the public habitually use. These are the Regional Transport Authority, the Provincial or as it is now called the State Transport Authority and the Appellate authority. Each one of them has various powers. Section 48 (d) (ii) (a) empowers the Regional Transport Authority to. direct that a stage carriage shall be used only on specified routes or in a specified area. Under section 44 (3) the State Transport Authority is given power to perform the duties of a Regional Transport Authority where there is no such authority and also to co-ordinate and regulate the activities and policies of the Regional Transport Authorities in the State. Section 64 empowers the setting up of an authority to hear appeals from the decisions of State Transport Authorities and Regional Transport. Authorities. In 1942 section 133-A was added to the principal Act. The first sub-section thereof empowers State Governments to establish a Motor Vehicles department. The third sub-section, among other things, empowers the State Governments to make rules

“to regulate the discharge by officers of the Motor Vehicles department of their functions...........the authorities to which they shall be subordinate, the duties to be performed by them” and other matters.

In 1948 the Legislature of Madras made some important changes in the Act. It introduced section 44-A which runs as follows:

“The Provincial Government may appoint a Provincial Transport Commissioner ; and notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, may, by notification in the Fort St. George Gazette, authorise such Commissioner or any officer subordinate to him, to exercise and discharrge, in lieu of any other authority prescribed by or under this Act, such powers and functions as may be specified in the notification.”

It also introduced section 48-A which empowers

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