The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : “No discrimination in grant of temporary permits to stage carriers”

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Wednesday, Jan 28, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

“No discrimination in grant of temporary permits to stage carriers”

K.T.Sangameswaran

Validity of proviso to Rule 248 (1) of MV Rules upheld

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has upheld the constitutional validity of proviso to Rule 248 (1) of the Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles Rules.

In his order dismissing petitions by Palaniammal and A.Ravindran, stage carriage operators at Vellitiruppur and Salem, which challenged the constitutional validity of the proviso, Justice K.Chandru said in the grant of temporary permits there was no discrimination between private operators and State Transport Undertakings (STUs).

The proviso enabled authorities to fix tentative timings in respect of STUs alone as the situation contemplated in the Motor Vehicles Act warranted such exclusion of notice.

Petitioners’ counsel argued that fixation of timing was an essential requirement for grant of permit.

But, the State had exceeded its limits and given blanket power to the authorities for granting not only temporary permits but also arbitrary power in fixing tentative timings for STUs alone.

This had given a cutting edge to STUs and was unconstitutional.

The State government submitted that the petitioners had not raised a single ground as to how they were prejudiced by the exercise of power under proviso to Rule 248 (1) of the MV Rules (stage carriage-fixing schedule of timing).

They had not cited a single instance wherein the grant of temporary stage carriage permits to an STU had affected their operations.

In his order, Mr.Justice Chandru said there was no discrimination in the matter of grant of temporary permits. However, in exigencies, private operators may not come forward to operate a bus either due to lack of spare vehicles or business.

Criteria

The STUs may run buses because they were State-owned and profit making may not be the only criteria when they were made to operate on such routes. Only in fixing timings, the authorities had been empowered to grant tentative timings to STUs without notice.

The petitions were misconceived and devoid of merit, the judge said.

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