The Chief Justice.-By their order dated 17th April, 1951, the Government of Madras set aside an order of the Central Road Traffic Board, and Subba Rao, J., quashed this order of Government by his order dated 1st August, 1951. The learned Judge quashed the order on the ground that it disclosed ex facie that they passed their order after reading a petition from certain Congress-workers which was not strictly permissible in law. Though the Government did not say that they acted upon the petition, inasmuch as they did not say that the petition in no manner influenced them in coming to a conclusion, it could not be said that that petition might not have influenced the Government in passing their order. As matters extraneous to the application pending before them had been taken into consideration, the learned Judge was of the opinion that their order should be quashed.

The question which now arises on an application taken out for a writ of mandamus by the party who was successful before the Government on the prior occasion is whether after the quashing of their order, the Government should take up the application filed before them under section 64-A of the Motor Vehicles Act and rehear the same. We have no doubt whatever in the matter that when an order of the inferior tribunal on an application properly made to them is quashed by this Court by a writ of certiorari oh any ground which does not deal with the merits of the case, it is not only permissible, but it is also incumbent on the inferior tribunal to take up the application and rehear the same. The learned Advocate-General appearing for the State very properly admitted this position and stated that the Government was prepared to deal with the application before them in the light of the judgment of this Court. In these circumstances it is not necessary to grant a mandamus as pointed out by Lord Goddard, C.J., in the recent judgment in Rex v. Northumberland Compensation Appeal Tribunal1. The learned Chief Justice says:

“Once the order is quashed it follows that the applicant will be able to go back to the appeal tribunal.”

In this case, once the order of the Government is quashed the applicant will be able to go back to the Government acting under section 64-A.

K.S. ----- Application dismissed.

Click Here to Read the rest of this document