Rajagopala Ayyangar, J.-These are appeals from the judgment of Rajagopalan, J., dismissing the application by the two appellants for the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash an order of the Government setting aside the order of the Transport authority under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act.

The second respondent in both the appeals, N. S. Motor Service Salem, had permits for two buses on the route Hosur to Salem. This operator applied on 11th March, 1953, for the variation of the conditions of the permits for these two buses to enable them to be run beyond Salem up to Perundurai. The appellants before us are also operators running their buses in the route from Salem to Perundurai. This application for variation was dealt with by the Central Road Traffic Board, and under rule 208 (b) of the Rules framed under the Motor Vehicles Act, the procedure applicable to an application for permit prescribed for applications for variations also. The Board accordingly issued a notification under section 57(3) of the Act on 31st October, 1953, allowing time till 20th November, 1953, for the filing of any representations to be considered by them. No representations in writing satisfying the requirements of section 57(3) of the Act were received by the Central Road Traffic Board within the time limited. The appellants however submitted representations out of time. But as under section 57(4) these could not be considered by the Central Road Traffic Road the application for variation was treated as unopposed. The Assistant Secretary of the Central Road Traffic Board who had authority delegated to him under the rules framed under the Motor Vehicles Act considered the 2nd respondent’s application and passed an order rejecting the variation applied for. The 2nd respondent thereupon filed an appeal to the Government and the latter by their order dated, 18th October, 1954, set aside the order of the Central Road Traffic Board and granted the variation sought. The two appellants thereupon filed petitions under Articles 226 of the Constitution (W.P.No.720 and 721 of 1954) for the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the Government granting the variation to the N.S. Motor Services, Salem.. The grounds upon which the order of the Government was challenged before the learned Judge were twofold. (1) The Government had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal by the 2nd respondent because under the Motor Vehicles Act no appeal lay against an order rejecting an application for variation of the conditions of permit. (2) Even if the Government had jurisdiction to interfere with the order of the Central Road Traffic Board, the exercise of that jurisdiction was vitiated by the failure of the Government to give notice to the petitioners (appellants here) before they passed an order which affected them adversely. The learned Judge proceeded upon the footing that no appeal lay to the Government but as it was admitted that the Government had revisional jurisdiction under section 64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, there was no insuperable objection in sustaining the validity of the order passed by the Government. The learned Judge also held that as the petitioners before him had not filed representations in time, they had no right to be heard by the Government and that consequently there was no violation of the principles of natural justice in not issuing notice to them before interfering with the order of the Central Road Traffic Board. On this reasoning, the learned Judge dismissed the two writ petitions.

Mr. T.M. Krishnaswami Aiyar, learned counsel for the appeallants, urged that the decision of the learned Judge was wrong on both the points. We shall deal with the two points separately. The first was that the appellants were persons who would be adversely affected by any order for variation in favour of the 2nd respondent and that the principles of natural justice required that notice should be given to them before an order passed in their favo

Click Here to Read the rest of this document