Order.-These several writ petitions are by a number of motor transport operators who are aggrieved by the orders of the State Government, purporting to be under section 64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, and call in question the legality of each of the orders of the State Government, disposing of such revision petitions under section 64-A of the Act which had been filed before them. In these writ applications the orders of Government are impugned on various grounds, but a ground common to all these relates to the effect of Act XXXIX of 1954 upon the jurisdiction of Government to pass the orders now challenged, and we propose to deal with this point alone.

Section 64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act empowered the State Government

“of its own motion or on application made to it to call for records of any order passed or proceeding taken under Chapter IV by any authority or officer subordinate to it and to pass such order in reference thereto as it thinks fit.”

Under this provision a large number of such revision petitions had been filed before the State Government and were pending till about the end of December, 1955. Madras Act XXXIX of 1954, which amended various provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, repealed section 64-A of the parent or principal Act, with the result that on such repeal the powers of the Government to pass the orders set out in the last portion of section 64-A was terminated. This Amending Act received the assent of the President on 22nd January, 1955 and was published in the Fort St. George Gazette on the 22nd February, 1955. But the repeal did not take effect immediately on the passing of the enactment because section 1(2) of this Amending Act provided for the amendments including the repeal of section 64-A coming into force

“on such date as the State Government may by notification in the Fort St. George Gazette appoint.”

The notification, which was issued in pursuance of this provision, fixed the date on which the Amending Act was to come into force as 1st January, 1956, so that on that date the repeal took effect, and the powers of the Government under section 64-A became no longer available. The Amending Act provided an alternative forum for the determination of the matters which theretofore were being dealt with by the State Government, designating this as the prescribed authority; and section 5 of the 1954 Act enacted:

“All proceedings pending with the State Government on the date on which this Act comes into force shall stand transferred to the prescribed authority referred to in section 64 of the principal Act and be proceeded with from the stage which had been reached immediately before such date”.

The result was that, if any proceeding was “pending” with the State Government on 1st January, 1956, such proceeding stood, by force of the statute, transferred to “the prescribed authority”, thus depriving the Government of any further power to deal with it.

The orders issued by the State Government, which are impugned in these several writ petitions, bear dates beyond 1st January, 1956, the earliest of them being the orders in W.P. Nos. 26, 33, 58 and 59 of 1956 which are dated 2nd January, 1956; and the others bear later dates. One of the principal grounds raised by the petitioners in these several writ petitions-and this is the common ground to which we referred to earlier -relates to the validity of these orders, the contention being, that on the repeal by Act XXXIX of 1954 taking effect, all the revision petitions not disposed of by the Government by 31st December, 1955, stood automatically transferred to the prescribed authority, and that the Government has thereafter no power to pass the orders which they have. On the language of section 5 of the Amending Act which we have set out above, there can be no controversy, that if the orders of the Government which are impugned in these petitions are really to be taken to have been passed on the dates they bear, the contention of the petitioners must be accepted, viz,

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