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Virbhadra abused authority to grant transport permit: Supreme Court

Legal Correspondent

All constitutional functionaries must act within limits, says Bench

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has strongly indicted the former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh for abuse of authority in the award of transport permit and slapped costs of Rs. 1 lakh on the State government.

“Our Constitution envisages the rule of law and not rule of men. It recognises that, howsoever high one may be, he is under law and the Constitution. All constitutional functionaries must function within the constitutional limits,” said a Bench consisting of Justices S.B. Sinha and V.S. Sirpurkar.

“In the matter of grant of permit to an individual applicant, the state has no say. The Chief Minister or any authority, other than the statutory authority, could not, therefore, entertain an application for grant of permit, nor could he issue any order thereupon. Even any authority under the Act, including the appellate authority, cannot issue any direction, except when the matter comes up before it under the statute.”

The Bench was dealing with the question “whether the Chief Minister of a State has any role to play in the matter of grant of stage carriage permit in terms of the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.”

Writing the judgment, Justice Sinha said: “The Act is a self-contained code. All the authorities mentioned therein must act within the four corners thereof. The state has a general control but it must be exercised strictly in terms of Article 162.”

The Bench said: “Statutory authorities are bound to act in terms thereof, but per se the same does not authorise any minister including the Chief Minister to act in derogation of the statutory provisions. The Constitution does not envisage the functioning of the government through the Chief Minister alone. It speaks of a Council of Ministers. All governmental orders must comply with the requirements of the statute as also the constitutional provisions.”

In this case, the RTO awarded transport permit to a bus operator at the instance of the former Chief Minister. The Himachal Pradesh High Court dismissed petitions filed by Pancham Chand and others challenging the grant of permit.

No business to interfere

Allowing the appeal against this judgment, the Bench said: “Nothing has been placed on record to show that the [former] Chief Minister in his capacity even as a member of the Cabinet was authorised to deal with the matter of transport in his official capacity; even otherwise, he had absolutely no business to interfere with the functioning of the RTO.”

The Chief Minister’s office communicated the order of the Chief Minister not once but twice and the RTO acted thereupon.

“This itself goes to show that prior thereto no proper application was filed before the RTO. Such interference on the part of any authority upon whom the [MV] Act does not confer any jurisdiction is wholly unwarranted in law. It violates the constitutional scheme. It interferes with the independent functioning of a quasi-judicial authority. A permit, if granted, confers a valuable right. An applicant must earn the same.”

The Chief Minister could not entertain the same or usurp the function of the RTO, the Bench said. The costs are to be paid to the National Legal Services Authority.

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