Judgment

R.M. SAHAI, J.- Whether notification of a route under Section 68-C of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (for short the Act) excluding completely or partially private operators from plying on the notified route results in excluding the operators of inter-State route as well is the question of law that arises for consideration in these appeals.

2. Although the controversy appears to have been settled long ago yet the circumstances in which the dispute has been continuing till now and has reached this Court may be narrated. The appellants are permitholders of stage carriages operating on inter-State route having starting point at one or the other place in State of Karnataka and termini in the State of Tamil Nadu. Some of them are operating on the intra-State route since before the route was notified by what has come to be known as Anekal Pocket Scheme of 1959. But their plying was not affected as the scheme was treated as of partial exclusion or not applicable to inter-State route by this Court. Now they are aggrieved by cancellation of their permits as it overlaps the route notified by publication of scheme in 1959 under Section 68-C of the Act. The validity of this scheme was upheld by this Court in H.C. Narayanappa v. State of Mysore{(1960) 3 SCR 742}. But in view of the observations made to the following effect:

"But a scheme under Section 68-C must be one in relation to an area or any route or portion thereof wherein the transport service is to be undertaken by the State transport undertaking to the exclusion, either complete or partial, of other operators. Column 1 of the approved scheme undoubtedly describes the area in relation to which the scheme is approved, but by the designation of the area in the scheme, an intention to exclude either wholly or partially the operators of stage carriages from that area is not evinced either expressly or by implication."

the Regional Transport Authority modified the inter-State permits and imposed a condition to the following effect:

"As the route for which the permit is held overlaps the route notified by the Government of Mysore in its Notification No. HD 39-EMB-59 dated April 15, 1959 no passenger from any point situated in the notified route other than those desirous of alighting or boarding at any point beyond Hoskote shall be carried in the vehicle or vehicles covered by such permits."

3. In 1963, it is claimed that the State Transport Authorities of Karnataka and Madras, having regard to the interest of the travelling public, after investigating the necessity for grant of permits, granted stage carriages through the Anekal Pocket Scheme with the same restrictions as were imposed earlier and are known as corridor restrictions. The grant of permit was objected to by the Mysore State Road Transport Corporation insofar as it overlapped notified routes. The dispute ultimately reached this Court and question arose whether a permit could be granted to an inter-State transport operator for the whole of the route despite the fact that a part of the route overlapped a part of notified intra-State route. In Mysore State Road Transport Corpn. v. Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal{(1975) 4 SCC 192} this Court did not enter into the question whether the State Transport Undertaking was empowered to prohibit the use of any portion of a route by inter-State operators as it was of opinion that even if it was shown that State Transport Undertaking could totally exclude inter-State operators from using any part of a notified route, it was a question of interpretation of the scheme framed under Section 68-C of the Act whether it intended to exclude private operators from operating on the route totally or partially. The Bench thereafter, on an examination of the scheme, came to the conclusion that it excluded only the operators named therein. The Bench held that the inter-State operators were not meant to be denied the use of the overlapping portions of routes covered by the scheme as their names were