1 The judgment rendered in Original Petition No. 5420 of 1985 is challenged in Writ Appeal No. 487 of 1985 by the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation), its District Transport Officer and the Inspector-in-charge of the Corporation at Chittoor. The other two appeals arise out of O. P. No. 4785 of 1985 and 4926 of 1985 which decisions have been rendered by the learned Single Judge following the judgment in O. P. No. 5430 of 1985. All these three appeals raise common questions of fact and law and therefore they are being disposed of by this common judgment. For the sake of convenience we will advert to the facts with reference to O. P. No. 5420 of 1985 which has given rise to writ appeal No. 488 of 1985.

2 Respondent No. 1 M. Kalyanakrishnan was the petitioner in the original petition and respondent No. 2 is the State of Kerala which was one of the respondents in the original petition. Respondent No. 1 was an employee of a stage carriage operator, the route on which the stage carriage on which he was an employee stood nationalised in the year 1975 under the provisions of Chap.4A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 . The first respondent and th