Municipal Board, Pushkar vs State Transport Authority, Rajasthan

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeal No. 332 of 1962

Decision Date: 21 November 1962

Coram: K.C. Das Gupta, P.B. Gajendragadkar, A.K. Sarkar, K.N. Wanchoo, N. Rajagopala Ayyangar

In this matter, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 21 November 1962. The case was styled Municipal Board, Pushkar versus State Transport Authority, Rajasthan, and was heard by a bench consisting of Justice K. C. Das Gupta, Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar, Justice A. K. Sarkar, Justice K. N. Wanchoo, and Justice N. Rajagopala Ayyangar. The petition was filed by the Municipal Board of Pushkar, and the respondents were the State Transport Authority of Rajasthan together with other parties. The judgment was reported in 1965 AIR 458 and also appears in the 1963 Supreme Court Reports (Second Series) at page 273, with subsequent citations in later case law reporters. The statutory provisions considered included sections 64A, 68, 76 and 91(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, as well as rule 134 of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicles Rules, 1955, and Article 142 of the Constitution of India.

The factual background recorded that on 24 May 1948 the Municipal Board of Pushkar passed a resolution to relocate the existing bus stand, which stood on a sacred lake, to a new site near the police station; the Board also resolved to construct a passenger shed and provide additional facilities for pilgrims at the new location. The Regional Transport Authority, by a resolution dated 3–4 December 1959, accepted this proposal and issued a public notification to that effect on 28 June 1960. Before that notification was issued, two local residents filed an application before the State Transport Authority under section 64A of the Motor Vehicles Act seeking revision of the Regional Transport Authority’s decision dated 3–4 December 1959; that application was dismissed on 18 February 1960. A second application for revision of the same order, filed by certain bus operators on 13 April 1960, was allowed by the State Transport Authority on 6 January 1961, which consequently reversed the Regional Transport Authority’s decision of 31 December 1959 and directed that the original bus stand should remain in place. The Municipal Board then approached the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, challenging the State Transport Authority’s order; the High Court rejected the petition. The Board obtained special leave to appeal to this Court. In its appeal, the Board contended that the Regional Transport Authority’s order altering the bus stand was made under section 76 of the Motor Vehicles Act and therefore was not subject to revision; it also argued that the revision application was barred by the limitation period, and that a second revision could not be entertained because the first rejection caused the Regional Transport Authority’s order to cease, having merged into the State Transport Authority’s order. The Court held, per curiam, that it is well settled that equitable considerations have no place in interpreting limitation provisions and that the strict grammatical meaning of the provision must be applied. Accordingly, the expression “date of the order” in the first proviso to section 64A of the Act could not be understood to refer to the date on which the order was known. The judgment further noted that the order of the

The Court observed that the Regional Transport Authority’s decision to establish a new bus stand and discontinue the old one was not issued under section 76 of the Motor Vehicles Act, a provision that did not apply to the matter. Instead, the decision was taken under rule 134 of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicles Rules, 1955, exercised pursuant to the powers granted by subsection (r) of section 68(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act. Consequently, the order was amenable to revision under section 64A by the State Transport Authority. The Court relied on the earlier decision in T B Ibrahim v. Regional Transport Authority, Tanjore, [1953] S.C.R. 290, to support this view. Section 76, the Court noted, had no relevance to the fixing or alteration of a bus stand; the term “bus stand” was not defined in the Act, but it clearly referred to a place where bus services commenced or terminated. Properly construed, section 76 dealt only with the determination of parking places as referred to in section 91(2)(e). The power to fix bus stands fell within section 68(2)(r), and the authority to issue the necessary notification was implied in that clause. The Court cited Nagendranath v. Suresh, A.I.R. 1932 P.C. 165; General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Corporation Ltd. v. Janmohomed Abdul Rahim, A.I.R. 1941 P.C. 6; and Boota Mal v. Union of India, [1963] 1 S.C.R. 70, in support of this construction. In the present case, the effective order fixing the new bus stand was effected not by the resolution of 3‑4 December 1959 but by the publication of the notification on 28 June 1960. Because the revision application under section 64A was filed before that date, the limitation period could not be invoked. The Court further held that the principle of merger did not apply, as the State Transport Authority’s order rejecting the first revision application was issued before the lawful notification of 28 June 1960. The judgments in Collector of Customs, Calcutta v. East India Commercial Co. Ltd. [1963] 3 S.C.R. 338 and Madan Gopal Bungta v. Secretary to the Government of Orissa [1962] Supp. 3 S.C.R. 906 were distinguished.

The Court noted that the notice required by the second proviso to section 64A had not been issued by the State Transport Authority before it passed its order of 6 January 1961. In the interests of justice, the Court exercised its authority under article 142 of the Constitution and directed that the matter be remitted to the revisional authority for disposal in accordance with law. Referring to the opinion of Justice Sarkar, the Court stated that the State Transport Authority’s order dated 6 January 1961 was patently erroneous and ought to be set aside because it was made under section 64A on an application that was filed after the thirty‑day period prescribed by that section had expired. Assuming that the order which could be set aside under section 64A was the one issued on 28 June 1960, the Court concluded that the State Transport Authority’s order of 6 January 1961 remained patently…

The Court observed that the State Transport Authority correctly set aside the order dated 3‑4 December 1959, but it had no statutory authority under section 64A to set aside any other order. The Authority possessed no power to, on its own motion, treat the application for setting aside the December 1959 order as an application to set aside the order dated 28 June 1960. No party moved for such a treatment, and the Authority never, on its own initiative, considered the application as referring to the June 1960 order; it expressly set aside only the Regional Transport Authority’s December 1959 order. Consequently, the High Court was held to be in error when it concluded that because the notification of 28 June 1960 contained an order that could be set aside under section 64A, the application filed before that date was not time‑barred. The High Court failed to notice that the application sought relief only against the December 1959 order and said nothing about the June 1960 order. Moreover, an application filed to set aside the December 1959 order could not, by amendment, be converted into an application to set aside the June 1960 order after the prescribed thirty‑day period from the latter date had expired. The matter before this Court was a civil appeal numbered 332 of 1962, taken on special leave from the judgment and order dated 31 August 1961 of the Rajasthan High Court in D.B. Civil Writ No. 76 of 1961. The appeal was argued by counsel representing the appellant and the respondents, with senior counsel including the Attorney General of India and the Solicitor General of India. The judgment was delivered on 21 November 1962 by a bench comprising Justices Gajendragadkar, Wanchoo, Das Gupta and Ayyangar, with Justice Das Gupta authoring the main opinion and Justice Sarkar delivering a separate judgment.

Justice Das Gupta then described the setting of Pushkar in Rajasthan, noting that a sacred tank, long revered by Hindus, lies at the centre of a well‑known pilgrimage site. A road runs roughly north to south along the eastern side of the lake. The ghats providing access to the water are situated immediately to the west of this road. Along the same roadway, several dharamshalas and at least one gurudwara have been established not far from the lake. A Hanuman‑ji temple stands east of the road, a short distance from the lake’s southern edge, while a Rang‑ji temple, located very near the ghats, also lies on the eastern side of the road. Further north on the same road, a Brahma‑ji temple appears, positioned a short distance away from where the road, extending northward from the lake’s edge, meets another thoroughfare leading to Ganera Deedwana Nagar. To the south, the road continues past the dharamshalas towards Ajmer. The Pushkar police station is situated some distance from the lake, on a road that leads north to Ganera Deedwana Nagar and joins the southern route to Ajmer, forming an irregular triangular shape with the road by the ghats. This description set the factual backdrop for the dispute concerning the location of the bus stand within the town.

The police station that serves Pushkar lake is situated on a road that leads northward toward Ganera Deedwana Nagar and, after passing the station, joins the southern route that continues to Ajmer. Consequently, the north‑south road that runs beside the police station meets the road that runs along the eastern side of the lake’s ghats a short distance north of the police station, while the two roads diverge farther apart toward the south. In this manner the two thoroughfares outline an irregular shape that closely resembles a triangle. Pilgrims travelling to the lake regularly use this road and may obtain their transport from a variety of motor‑vehicle services that operate along it.

The controversy that is the subject of the present appeal concerns the location of the bus stand that serves these motor‑vehicle operators. For many years the bus stand occupied a position on the road that runs alongside the lake, a short distance north of the Hanumanji temple and in close proximity to the dharamshalas. On 24 May 1948 the Municipal Board of Pushkar adopted a resolution directing that the bus stand be transferred to an alternative site located on the road adjoining the police station. The same resolution also ordered the construction of a passenger shed, a pavilion, bathing facilities, latrines, urinals and other amenities for the convenience of passengers at the newly proposed stand.

Subsequently, the Regional Transport Authority considered the Municipal Board’s proposal at a meeting held on 3 December and 4 December 1959. The Authority passed a resolution stating that the bus stand for Pushkar would be situated on the plot of land at the junction of Hallows Road with Ganera Road, near the police station and Kalkaji’s temple. The resolution further declared that the existing bus stand situated between Hanuman Gharhi temple and Bralimannandji’s Baghichi would cease to function as a bus stand and would be relegated to a mere bus stop. Buses were ordered not to pass through the city but to travel from the bus stop to the new stand and return, and the Municipal Board was instructed to provide the requisite facilities. The buses would be shifted to the new location once those facilities were in place.

The resolution was not implemented until a public notice was issued on 28 June 1960 in compliance with the Authority’s decision. That notice informed the public of the Regional Transport Authority’s determination fixing the new bus stand at the specified junction and discontinuing the old stand, which would thereafter serve only as a bus stop. The notice also reiterated that buses were prohibited from traversing the city, that they must proceed to the new stand from the bus stop, and that no other place in Pushkar would be authorized for use as a bus stand. The new arrangement came into effect after that notification. Long before the issuance of the notice, two Pushkar residents, Jai Narain and Madan Mohan, filed an application before the State Transport Authority seeking revision of the Regional Transport Authority’s decision to relocate the bus stand.

The State Transport Authority received an application that sought a revision of the Regional Transport Authority’s decision to change the bus stand in Pushkar. The applicant asserted that the revision petition fell under section 64A of the Motor Vehicles Act. The authority heard this petition on 18 February 1960 and dismissed it on the same day. Subsequently, on 13 April 1960, five operators of the Ajmer‑Pushkar bus route filed a fresh revision petition, also invoking section 64A of the Motor Vehicles Act, challenging the Regional Transport Authority’s order to relocate the stand. The State Transport Authority considered the second petition and issued its order on 6 January 1961. In that order the authority rejected the preliminary objection raised by the respondent’s counsel that no revision lay against the Regional Transport Authority’s order, and it also rejected the argument that the matter had already been decided on 18 February 1960, which would preclude the authority from reviewing its own earlier decision. The authority further dismissed the contention that the revision petition was barred by limitation.

Turning to the merits of the case, the State Transport Authority expressed the view that establishing a new bus stand would likely cause inconvenience to women pilgrims and children, and that the old stand better served the public utility and convenience of the town. Accordingly, the authority allowed the revision petition, set aside the Regional Transport Authority’s earlier order, and directed that the old location continue to be recognised as the official bus stand for Pushkar. The Municipal Board of Pushkar challenged this order by filing a writ petition before the Rajasthan High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. The board sought appropriate writs or directions to set aside the State Transport Authority’s order dated 6 January 1961. The board raised three principal grounds: first, that the Regional Transport Authority’s order was made under section 76 of the Motor Vehicles Act and therefore was not subject to revision; second, that the revision application was barred by limitation; and third, that the State Transport Authority, having already rejected one revision petition against the same order, could not entertain another petition on identical grounds.

The High Court examined the board’s contentions and concluded that none of them possessed any substance, thereby dismissing the writ petition. The Municipal Board of Pushkar subsequently filed the present appeal before this Court, obtaining special leave to do so. In support of the appeal, the Attorney‑General argued that the High Court’s decision on all three points was erroneous. He reiterated that the Regional Transport Authority’s order to change the bus stand was made under section 76 of the Motor Vehicles Act and therefore could not be revised, that the revision petition was indeed barred by limitation, and that the State Transport Authority should not have entertained the second petition after rejecting the first one on the same grounds.

In this case, the Court observed that because the initial application for revision had been dismissed, a subsequent application for revision could not be entertained. The Court explained that once the first revision request was rejected, the order issued by the Regional Transport Authority ceased to exist, having been merged into the order of the State Transport Authority. Consequently, the matter of whether a second revision could be filed did not arise. The Court then turned to the primary question that required determination, namely whether the order of the Regional Transport Authority had been made under section 76 of the Motor Vehicles Act or, as the respondents contended, under section 68 of the same Act.

Section 76, the Court noted, is situated in Chapter VI of the Motor Vehicles Act, which deals with the control of traffic. Section 68, by contrast, is located in Chapter IV, which addresses the control of transport vehicles. The Court described the substantive content of section 76 as granting the State Government, or any authority authorized by the State Government, the power “to determine places at which motor vehicles may stand either indefinitely or for a specified period of time” and also to “determine the places at which public service vehicles may stop for a longer time than is necessary for the taking up and setting down of passengers.” According to the learned Attorney‑General, it was under this authority to fix a location where motor vehicles could remain for an indefinite or defined period that the location of a bus stand could be determined by the State Government or by any other authority it authorized.

The respondents, represented by the Solicitor‑General, advanced a contrasting view. They argued that the phrase in section 76 referring to “places at which motor vehicles may stand either indefinitely or for a specified period of time” pertains solely to parking places, whereas the phrase concerning “places at which public service vehicles may stop for a longer time than is necessary for the taking up and setting down of passengers” relates to halting stations. The respondents maintained that neither of these concepts encompassed the idea of a bus stand. They defined a bus stand as the location where a bus service either begins or ends. The Solicitor‑General further asserted that the establishment or alteration of a bus stand must be made pursuant to a rule framed under section 68(2)(r) of the Act, which empowers the Regional Transport Authority to fix bus stands.

Section 68, the Court explained, empowers the State Government to make rules to give effect to the provisions of Chapter IV. The second subsection of that section provides that, without limiting the generality of the power just described, rules may be made concerning any of the matters enumerated in the clause set out in that subsection. Clause (r) of that subsection reads as follows: “prohibiting the picking up and setting down of passengers by stage or contract carriages at specified places or in specified areas or at places other than”. The respondents argued that, in order to make an effective rule under this clause, it was first necessary to have duly notified stands. They contended that the clause therefore required a rule to first provide for the notification of certain stands for transport vehicles and then to prohibit the picking up and setting down of passengers by stage or contract carriages at places other than those duly notified stands.

In this case the Court noted that the provision under section 68(2)(r) of the Motor Vehicles Act states that the picking up and setting down of passengers by stage or contract carriages must be prohibited at places other than duly notified stands or halting places, and that a driver of a stage carriage is required to stop and remain stationary for a reasonable time when a passenger wishes to board or alight at a notified halting place. The learned Solicitor‑General argued that, in order to make an effective rule under this clause, it is first necessary to have stands that have been duly notified. He further maintained that the clause contemplates a rule doing two things: first, providing for the notification of certain stands for transport vehicles; and second, prohibiting the picking up and setting down of passengers by stage or contract carriages at any location other than those duly notified stands. He asserted that the requirement of prior notification was indispensable to give effect to the statutory purpose of regulating passenger pick‑up and drop‑off, and that any rule made without such notification would be ultra vires. The Solicitor‑General also submitted that the question of whether the fixation or alteration of bus stands may be made under section 76 or under section 68 of the Act is no longer a question of law that has not been decided, and that the decision in T. B. Ibrahim v. Regional Transport Authority, Tanjore, should be taken as supporting his contention.

The Court found merit in that argument and proceeded to recount the facts of the Ibrahim case. In that matter the appellant owned a bus stand on his own property. On 21 February 1950 the Regional Transport Authority of Tanjore declared the stand unsuitable and, effective 1 April 1950, issued two resolutions that altered the starting and terminal points of public service vehicles, asserting that the resolutions were made under section 76 of the Motor Vehicles Act. The appellant challenged the validity of those resolutions by filing a petition under article 226 of the Constitution before the Madras High Court. The High Court held that section 76 did not empower the authority to close the existing bus stand and consequently set aside the resolutions. Subsequently, on 10 November 1950, after hearing both the appellant and the municipality, the Regional Transport Authority passed another resolution stating that, for good and proper reasons, namely the convenience of the travelling public, it was necessary to alter the starting places and termini of all public service vehicles, except motor cabs, arriving at and departing from Tanjore, moving them from the existing bus stand to a different area of the town. A fresh petition under article 226 was filed against this later resolution, but the High Court dismissed it. The appellant then appealed to this Court by special leave, and the appeal was reported in [1953] S.C.R. 290. The contested resolution had been issued under Rule 268 of the Madras Motor Vehicles Rules, as amended. The amended rule read: “In the case of public service vehicles (other than motor cabs) the transport authority may, after consultation with such other authority as it may consider desirable and after notice to the parties affected, fix or alter from time to time for good and proper reasons, the starting places …” (the quotation continues in the subsequent text).

The Court explained that Rule 268, as amended, authorised the transport authority to fix and alter the starting places and termini for public service vehicles, other than motor cabs, within its jurisdiction. The authority was required to supply a list of those places to every permit holder at the time a permit was granted or renewed, and once the places were fixed each vehicle was to start only from those designated places. The petitioners in the second writ petition before the High Court argued that the amended Rule 268 exceeded the rule‑making power granted by section 68(2)(r) of the Motor Vehicles Act. The High Court rejected that argument, and the same contention was again raised before this Court, which also rejected it.

After reproducing the material portion of section 68, the Court noted that Chapter IV of the Act was described by the concise phrase “control of transport vehicles,” and that the provincial government possessed full powers to make rules to achieve that purpose. The Court then stated, “Keeping in view the purpose underlying the Chapter, we are not prepared to hold that the fixing or alteration of bus‑stands is foreign to that purpose.”

Addressing the specific claim that section 68(2)(r) did not give the transport authority power to direct the fixing or alteration of a bus stand, and therefore that Rule 268 was ultra vires, the Court observed, “We are not prepared to accede to this contention. Sub‑section 2(r) clearly contemplates three definite situations. It prohibits the picking up or setting down of passengers (i) at specified places, (ii) in specified areas, and (iii) at places other than duly notified stands or halting places.” The Court further explained that if the government has the power to make rules on these matters, it follows that a specified place may be prohibited from being used for picking up or setting down passengers, which would inevitably close that place for that purpose. Likewise, a specified area may be excluded for the same purpose. Although the phrase “duly notified stands” is not defined in the Act, the Court found it reasonable to presume that a duly notified stand must be one notified by the transport authority and by no other body, and there was no basis for assuming that the municipality had to provide the notification.

The Court then examined certain provisions of the Madras District Municipalities Act and held that those provisions did not limit the transport authority’s power to locate traffic‑control facilities. Consequently, if Rule 268 fell within the rule‑making authority, it could not be challenged as void on the ground that it conflicted with some general law. The discussion concluded with the observation that section 68, sub‑section (2)(r) involves both a general prohibition that the stand will cease to exist and a specific prohibition that passengers shall not be picked up or set down at a specified point, and that the order issued by the transport authority, when properly construed, fell within the ambit of section 68(2)(r).

In this case, the Court observed that the provision of section 68, sub‑section 2(r) of the Motor Vehicles Act created both a general prohibition against the existence of a stand and a specific prohibition that passengers could not be picked up or set down at a point that was not a designated stand. The Court held that the order issued by the Transport Authority, when properly interpreted, fell within the scope of section 68, sub‑section 2(r). The Court further noted that Rule 268, which formed the basis of the impugned order, was a rule made under the comprehensive rule‑making authority described in section 68, sub‑section 1. Sub‑section 2(za) of the same section provides that a rule may be made concerning any other matter that is required or may be prescribed, thereby indicating that a residuary power resides in the rule‑making authority. Consequently, the Court concluded that Rule 268 lay within the powers conferred by section 68 of the Act.

The judgment deliberately reproduced extensive quotations from the earlier decision of this Court to demonstrate that the earlier case required the Court to examine whether section 68(2)(r) indeed conferred on the Transport Authority the authority to direct the fixing or alteration of a bus stand, and the earlier Court answered this question affirmatively. That earlier decision, often referred to as Ibrahim’s case, therefore serves as a clear and direct authority for the proposition that, under section 68(2)(r) of the Motor Vehicles Act, the State Government possesses the power to frame rules that empower the Regional Transport Authority to fix or alter bus‑stands. The notification dated 28 June 1960 cited Rule 134 of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicles Rules, 1955, as the source of authority under which a new bus stand at Pushkar was established, the former bus stand was discontinued, and it was ordered that no place other than the new stand could be used for bus‑standing in that town.

Rule 134, in its material portion, reads as follows: “A Regional Transport Authority, by notification in the Rajasthan Gazette, or by the erection of traffic signs permitted for that purpose under subsection (1) of section 75 of the Act, or by both methods, may, with respect to the taking up or setting down of passengers by public‑service vehicles or by any specified class of such vehicles within the limits of any municipality, or within such other limits as may be specified in the notification, prescribe that only certain specified stands or halting places shall be used.” This provision plainly empowers the authority to fix or alter bus stands. When the Rajasthan Motor Vehicles Rules, 1951, were framed, the Rajasthan Government listed the numerous sections of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, that gave it the power to make rules, namely sections 21, 41, 65, 68, 70, 71(2), 73, 74, 75, 77, 80, 86(2), 88, 90 and 91. In light of the Court’s decision in Ibrahim’s case, it is proper to hold that Rule 134 was made under the authority of section 68. Accordingly, the order of the Regional Transport Authority fixing the new bus stand and discontinuing the old one was made under a rule enacted pursuant to section 68 of the Act.

In this case the Court observed that the order issued by the Regional Transport Authority to establish a new bus stand and discontinue the existing one was made pursuant to a rule that itself was enacted under section 68 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Consequently, the order was subject to revision under section 64A of the same Act. The Attorney‑General, representing the government, emphasized that the decision in Ibrahim Case did not expressly state that an order fixing or altering a bus stand could not be made under section 76 of the Act. He argued that Ibrahim Case therefore did not provide authority for the view that the order was not made under section 76. The Court noted that even if, for the sake of argument, the order could also be made under section 76, such a possibility would not diminish the authority of Ibrahim Case, which had held that a rule empowering the Transport Authority to fix or alter bus stands could be made under section 68(2)(r) of the Act. In that circumstance there was no escape from the conclusion that the present order of the Regional Transport Authority was liable to revision under section 64A.

The Court further held that Ibrahim Case also served as authority for the proposition that an order fixing or altering a bus stand could not be made under section 76. From the summary of what was discussed and decided in that case, it appeared that the Division Bench of the Madras High Court had given a categorical decision in an earlier writ petition that section 76 did not authorize the Transport Authority to close a bus stand. The Supreme Court approved that view. The reasoning adopted by the Court in deciding that section 68(2)(r) contemplated the fixation or alteration of a bus stand would have been considerably weakened, and would not have been accepted, had the Court thought that section 76 itself authorised the Transport Authority to fix or close a bus stand. The Court clarified that, even in the absence of the binding authority in Ibrahim Case, it would have had no hesitation in holding that the fixation or alteration of a bus stand is made under a rule made under section 68 of the Motor Vehicles Act and cannot be made under section 76. Chapter VI, dealing with the general control of traffic, was held to have no relevance to the fixation or alteration of bus stands. While section 76 uses the expression “places at which motor vehicles may stand,” the Attorney‑General attempted to persuade the Court that this phrase included the fixing of what is commonly known as bus stands. Although the term “bus stand” was not defined in the Act, the Court accepted the respondents’ contention that a bus stand means a place where bus services commence or terminate, that is, a place where buses stand for the purpose of starting or ending their transport service.

The Court observed that a bus‑stand is the location where a bus begins its transport service or where it remains after completing its service, and that this location is popularly known as a bus‑stand. The Court held that the words “places at which motor vehicles may stand either indefinitely or for a specified period of time” could not be reasonably interpreted to include a bus‑stand in that sense. The Court noted that Chapter VI, in which section 76 is situated, is intended to deal with the control of traffic, and therefore the determination of such places refers to the determination of parking places. In contrast, the determination of places where public vehicles may stop for a longer time than that required for the taking up and setting down of passengers refers to “halting stations for public service vehicles.” The Court pointed out that the latter part of the section can concern public service vehicles only, whereas the former part concerns motor vehicles in general. Consequently, the Court concluded that section 76 has no connection with the provision for bus‑stands.

The Court further examined section 91(2)(e), which empowers the State Government to make rules for “the maintenance and management of parking places and stands.” The Court found that this provision does not refer to bus‑stands, but to “stands” for motor vehicles that are essentially parking places governed by section 76. The Court then turned to Chapter IV, which is meant to address the control of transport vehicles, and said that it should be expected to contain provisions for fixing locations where transport vehicles may commence or terminate their journeys, that is, the fixation of bus‑stands. When the Court read section 68(2)(r), which contains the specific clause prohibiting the picking up and setting down of passengers at places other than duly notified stands, it considered that the word “stand” in that clause was used to mean “bus‑stands” as places where services start or end. The scheme of the subsection showed that bus‑stands must first be notified and that regulatory orders could follow. The Court held that the power to issue the necessary notification is implied in the provision, and therefore the State Government has the authority under that clause to make rules for fixing bus‑stands by duly notifying them.

Accordingly, the Court concluded that Rule 134, which empowers the Regional Transport Authority to fix or alter bus‑stands, is a rule made under the rule‑making authority granted by section 68. Even without relying on the authority cited in Ibrahim’s case, the Court was of the opinion that the order of the Regional Transport Authority was issued in pursuance of powers conferred on it by a rule made under section 68(2)(r) of the Motor Vehicles Act.

In this case, the Court examined the effect of section 64A of the Motor Vehicles Act, which provides that the State Transport Authority could not consider any application for revision of an order of the Regional Transport Authority unless the application was filed within thirty days of the date of that order. The appellant argued that the order under challenge had been issued by the Regional Transport Authority on 4 December 1959 and that the respondents had filed their application for revision on 13 April 1960, a delay that rendered the application time‑barred. The respondents contended that they might not have known the precise date of the order, and therefore the question of their knowledge should be irrelevant. The Court, however, held that the statutory provision expressly required the thirty‑day period to be measured from “the date of the order” and that the courts could not reinterpret it as a period running from the date of knowledge of the order. In support of this approach, the learned Attorney‑General referred to the Privy Council decisions in Nagendranath v. Suresh and General Accident Fire & Life Assurance Corporation Limited v. Jarmohan Abdul Rahim, which emphasized that limitation provisions must be given their strict grammatical meaning and that equitable considerations were inappropriate. The Court observed that this principle had been consistently applied by Indian courts and had been reaffirmed recently in Boota Mal v. Union of India. Consequently, the Court agreed that the words “date of the order” could not be read as “date of knowledge of the order” absent a clear legislative indication to the contrary.

To illustrate that the legislature would have expressly indicated a different commencement point if it had intended one, the Attorney‑General highlighted several other sections of the Motor Vehicles Act where the start of the limitation period is tied to the service, receipt, or intimation of the order. Section 13, which deals with appeals against a refusal or revocation of a driving licence, allows an aggrieved person to appeal “within thirty days of the service on him of the order.” Section 15, concerning appeals against a disqualification order, provides that the appeal must be filed “within thirty days of the receipt of the order.” Section 16, which governs appeals against certain orders of the Regional Transport Authority, states that the appeal may be made “within thirty days of the receipt of intimation of such order.” Finally, section 35, another provision relating to appeals, requires filing “within thirty days of the date of receipt of notice of the order.” These provisions demonstrate that when the legislature intended the limitation period to run from a point other than the date the order was made, it expressly used language to that effect. The Court therefore concluded that, in the absence of such specific wording in section 64A, the thirty‑day period must be calculated from the actual date on which the order was issued. The remaining issue for determination was the precise meaning of “date of the order”: whether it referred to the date on which the Regional Transport Authority passed its resolution, as the appellant asserted, or to the later date on which the resolution was communicated, as the bus operators contended.

In the provision that deals with appeals, the Court referred to earlier authorities, namely A.I.R. (1932) P.C. 165, A.I.R. (1941) P.C. 6 and [1963] 1 S.C.R. 70, which all state that an appeal may be filed “within thirty days of the date of receipt of notice of the order.” The Court observed that there is considerable force in the argument that, had the legislature intended an application for revision under section 64A to be permitted within thirty days from the date on which the aggrieved person received notice or became aware of the order, it would have expressly said so. In the absence of any such express provision, the Court is bound to hold that an application for revision will be barred unless it is made within thirty days of the date of the order that caused the grievance. This observation left open the issue of determining what exactly constitutes the “date of the order.” The appellant contended that the date on which the Regional Transport Authority passed its resolution should be treated as the date of the order. The bus operators, on the other hand, argued that the date when that resolution was brought into effect by publishing a notification should be regarded as the operative date of the order. The Court accepted the respondents’ contention. It explained that it is a mistake to treat the date of passage of the resolution as the date on which the fixation of a new bus stand or the discontinuance of the old bus stand was ordered. Rule 134 itself provides that fixation or alteration of bus stands must be effected by a notification, and only upon such notification does a bus stand legally come into existence. As long as the notification has not been issued, there is no effective fixation of a new stand nor any discontinuance of the old one. The Court further considered that section 64A allows a person aggrieved by an order to apply for revision, and the grievance arises only when the order is actually made. In the present case, the grievance claimed by the bus operators stems from the fixation of the new bus stand and the discontinuance of the old one. No genuine cause for grievance exists until a notification effecting such fixation and discontinuance is issued. Consequently, the order is not “made” until the notification is published; prior to that, there is merely an expression of intention to make an order. This distinction between the intention to fix or discontinue a bus stand and the actual making of an order is evident from the language used by the Authority. The resolution that was passed on 4 December 1959, which the appellant regarded as the date of the order, therefore represents only a preliminary step, with the final order coming into existence only upon the subsequent publication of the notification.

The resolution dated 4 December 1959, which the Court identified as the date on which the impugned order was purportedly made, stated that the bus stand for Pushkar would be situated on the plot of land at the junction of Hallows Road with Ganera Road, near the Police Station and Kalkaji’s Temple. It further provided that the existing bus stand located on the northern side between Hanumangarhi Temple and Brahmanandji’s Baghichi would cease to function as a bus stand and would be reduced to a bus stop only. The resolution directed that buses would not pass through the city; instead they would travel from the designated bus stop to the new stand. It also required the Municipal Board to provide the necessary facilities and declared that the buses would shift to the new stand once those facilities had been supplied. The Transport Authority, however, did not issue a formal order on that same date to implement the resolution. Consequently, the Court regarded the passage of the resolution as merely the preliminary stage of the order‑making process, with the later publication of a notification constituting the final stage. The Court concluded that the order fixing a new bus stand at Pushkar and discontinuing the old bus stand was effectively made not on 4 December 1959 but on 28 June 1960, the date when the notification announcing the new bus stand was published. This 28 June 1960 order was the one subject to revision, and because the application for revision was filed before that date, anticipating the forthcoming notification, the limitation plea raised by the appellant was correctly dismissed by the Regional Transport Authority.

The appellant’s final contention was that, since the State Transport Authority had rejected, by its order dated 18 February 1960, the first application for revision of the Regional Transport Authority’s order fixing or altering the bus stand, the Regional Transport Authority’s order had merged into the State Transport Authority’s order, rendering the second revision application incompetent. The Court referred to the decision in Collector of Customs’ Calcutta v. East India Commercial Co. Ltd., Calcutta, wherein this Court held that once an order of the original authority is taken up on appeal before a higher authority, the order of the appellate authority becomes the operative order after the appeal is decided, whether the appellate authority reverses, modifies, or merely dismisses the appeal thereby confirming the original order without alteration. The Court also cited Madan Gopal Rungta v. Secretary to the Government of Orissa, in which this Court applied the merger principle to orders passed on review; specifically, an order of the Central Government that effectively rejected the appellant’s application for a mining lease and affirmed the rejection by the Orissa Government was held not to be amenable to the jurisdiction of the Orissa High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, because the Central Government’s order was the operative order.

In this case the Court observed that the Central Government’s order rejecting the review petition and thereby denying the appellant’s request for a mining lease functioned as the operative order, as indicated in the authorities cited. It was submitted, relying on those authorities, that the doctrine of merger should also apply to revision proceedings when the revising authority either reverses, modifies, or merely dismisses the revision application, thereby confirming the original order. The Court disagreed with that submission and held that the doctrine of merger could not be applied to the present facts. The Court explained that the order fixing a new bus stand and discontinuing the old one did not take legal effect on 4 December 1959, as the parties had assumed, but only on 28 June 1960 when the notification was issued. Consequently, at the time the first revision petition was filed and when the State Transport Authority later disposed of that petition, no order of the Regional Transport Authority establishing the new bus stand and removing the old one had yet come into existence. The Court noted that a question of merger could arise only if the revision concerned an order that was already effective. Even if the revision petition had been filed before the notification, the Court said, the revision could be treated as relating to the completed order only if the revising authority considered and decided the matter after the notification had been issued. In the present situation, however, the revising authority’s order was rendered before the notification was published, and therefore no operative order existed even under the State Transport Authority’s order of 18 February 1960. For that reason the contention that the second revision was invalid was rejected.

The Court then addressed two arguments raised during the hearing. First, it considered the application filed by the respondents’ bus operators on 13 April 1960, observing that that application also did not seek revision of a complete order. Since the State Transport Authority dealt with that application only by its order dated 6 January 1961, the Court examined whether this circumstance rendered the State Transport Authority’s order defective and entitled the appellant to a direction setting aside that order. The Court pointed out that, under the law, there was no complete order fixing a new bus stand at Pushkar and altering the old one until the notification of 28 June 1960 was issued. This legal position was not appreciated by either the applicants, the Municipal Board that opposed the application, or even the State Transport Authority. Accordingly, the appellant’s case did not rest on the contention that the State Transport Authority’s order was issued to revise a non‑existent order.

The writ petition before this Court requested that the State Transport Authority’s order dated 6 January 1961 be set aside on the ground that it purported to revise an earlier order which, in the eyes of the law, had no existence; however, after considering all of the facts and circumstances, the Court concluded that the appellant cannot now obtain a decree quashing the State Transport Authority’s decision on that basis. In the special factual matrix of this case, the Court held that the State Transport Authority, immediately after the notification issued on 28 June 1960 which completed the earlier order, could lawfully treat the application for revision filed on 13 April 1960 and then pending before it as an application for revision of the order as completed by that notification. Consequently, the order of 6 January 1961 must be understood as a revisional order not of the Regional Transport Authority’s decision dated 4 December 1959, but of the Regional Transport Authority’s order fixing a new bus stand at Pushkar, an order that became effective through the 28 June 1960 notification. The Court also noted, based on arguments raised at the Bar, that the State Transport Authority’s order of 6 January 1961 was issued without complying with the second proviso to section 64A, which provides: “Provided further that the State Transport Authority shall not pass an order under this section prejudicial to any person without giving him a reasonable opportunity of being heard.” The Court read this proviso as obligating the Authority, before making any revisional order under section 64A, to ensure that every person likely to be affected receives notice of the proposed order and is afforded a reasonable opportunity to be heard. The record shows that this statutory requirement was not satisfied before the 6 January 1961 order was made. The Court is convinced that, had the High Court’s attention been drawn to this failure, it would have been compelled to set aside the revisional order. Having now identified this infirmity, the Court cannot disregard it. While the learned Attorney‑General contended that once the Court accepts the plea that the revisional order is invalid because the authority did not comply with section 64A, the writ petition should be allowed immediately without giving the authority a chance to reconsider, the Court is not impressed by that argument. In view of the totality of the circumstances, the Court is satisfied that it must exercise its powers under Article 142 of the

In exercising its authority under Article 142 of the Constitution, the Court concluded that the most appropriate remedy was to remit the matter to the revisional authority for further consideration in accordance with law, a step that would secure complete justice between the parties. Accordingly, the Court allowed the appeal and set aside the order issued by the State Transport Authority on 6 January 1961. The Court further directed that the application seeking revision of the Regional Transport Authority’s order, which had been notified on 28 June 1961, should be dealt with by the State Transport Authority after the authority has complied with all legal requirements. Specifically, the authority must first publish a public notice of the matter and then afford every individual who has an interest in the case a reasonable opportunity to be heard. The Court ordered that each party should bear its own costs in the proceedings.

The Court’s conclusion that the appeal should be allowed was based on the factual background of the dispute. The appellant, the Municipal Board of Pushkar in Rajasthan, had passed a resolution in 1958 deciding that the existing bus stand located near Pushkar Lake ought to be relocated to a site the municipality deemed more suitable. Under Rule 134 of the rules framed by the Rajasthan Government pursuant to the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, the power to designate bus stands was vested in the Regional Transport Authorities. Rule 134 provides that a Regional Transport Authority, by notification in the Rajasthan Gazette or by erecting the appropriate traffic signs permitted under subsection (1) of section 75 of the Act, may either prohibit the use of any specified place for the boarding or alighting of passengers or may require that only designated stands or halting places within a municipality or other specified limits be used for such purposes. Acting on the municipality’s request, the Regional Transport Authority of Jaipur issued a resolution on 3–4 December 1959 accepting the proposal to shift the bus stand to the location recommended by the municipality. The resolution stipulated that the former bus stand would cease to function as a stand and would be used only as a bus stop, and it required the municipality to provide certain facilities before the new stand could become operational. The applicable provision of the Motor Vehicles Act, section 64A, states that the State Transport Authority may, either on its own motion or on an application made to it, call for the record of any case in which an order has been made by a Regional Transport Authority and in which no appeal lies, and if it appears to the

Section 64A of the Motor Vehicles Act authorized the State Transport Authority to examine any order made by a Regional Transport Authority when no appeal lay against it, and to pass any order it deemed appropriate if it found the Regional Transport Authority’s order to be improper or illegal. The provision also required that any aggrieved person apply to the State Transport Authority within thirty days from the date of the order, otherwise the application would not be entertained. After the Municipal Board of Pushkar moved the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur, for the relocation of the bus stand, the Regional Transport Authority passed a resolution on 3 December 1959 and 4 December 1959 approving the relocation and directing that the old stand would thereafter serve only as a bus stop. Several bus operators of Pushkar, who were respondents in the present appeal, filed an application under Section 64A on 13 April 1960 seeking to set aside that resolution. While the State Transport Authority considered the application, the Regional Transport Authority issued a notification on 28 June 1960, which was subsequently published in the Rajasthan Gazette on 14 July 1960, formally announcing the new bus stand. The delay in issuing this notification was attributed to the fact that two other parties had also approached the State Transport Authority under Section 64A to quash the same resolution and because the facilities that the Municipal Board had been directed to provide had not yet been arranged. The earlier petition under Section 64A was dismissed by the State Transport Authority on 18 February 1960, after which the Municipal Board supplied the required facilities, allowing the June 1960 notification to be issued. On 6 January 1961 the State Transport Authority granted the respondents’ petition, ordering that the decision of the Regional Transport Authority dated 3–4 December 1959 be set aside, that the old bus stand continue to be recognized as the official bus stand for Pushkar, and that the earlier resolution be cancelled. The Municipal Board then filed a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution in the Rajasthan High Court on 10 February 1961, challenging the State Transport Authority’s order; the High Court dismissed the petition, prompting the Municipal Board to appeal to this Court.

The appeal raised several points, but the Court focused on one that it considered decisive. The Municipal Board contended that the respondents’ petition under Section 64A was barred by the mandatory thirty‑day limitation, asserting that the petition was filed after the period prescribed by the proviso to that section had elapsed. The respondents, however, argued that the thirty‑day period should be calculated not from the date of the Regional Transport Authority’s resolution of 3–4 December 1959 but from the date on which they actually became aware of that resolution, and that, accordingly, their petition was filed within the allowable time. The Court examined the language of Section 64A and concluded that the thirty‑day limitation was to be measured from the date of the order itself, not from the date when an aggrieved party acquired knowledge of the order. The Court concurred with the reasoning expressed in a prior judgment delivered by Justice Das Gupta, finding no merit in the respondents’ contention. Consequently, the Court held that the petition filed on 13 April 1960 was time‑barred, that the State Transport Authority should have dismissed it as untimely, and that the earlier decision to set aside the Regional Transport Authority’s resolution was procedurally defective.

The Court explained that, for the purpose of section 64 A, the thirty‑day period must not be measured from the date on which the order itself was issued—here, the resolution dated 3 December 1959 and 4 December 1959—but rather from the date on which the respondents actually became aware of that order. The respondents argued that, if the period were computed from the moment of their knowledge, their petition would have been filed within the prescribed time limit. The Court disagreed with that interpretation, holding that the statute does not require the thirty‑day limit to commence when the aggrieved party first learns of the order that is sought to be set aside. The judgment of Justice Das Gupta, delivered immediately before this one, addressed the same question, and the present judgment fully concurs with his conclusion. Consequently, the Court found no necessity to reiterate the detailed reasoning on this point.

Applying this view, the Court concluded that the respondents’ petition under section 64 A, which sought to set aside the order of 3 December 1959 and 4 December 1959, was filed after the thirty‑day period had expired and therefore ought to have been dismissed as untimely. The State Transport Authority’s contention that the petition was timely—because it asserted that the period should be counted from the date of knowledge—was judged to be patently erroneous. As a result, the appellant Municipal Board should have been granted the writ sought in the High Court of Rajasthan.

Subsequently, the respondents advanced the argument that the relevant order of the Regional Transport Authority was not the December 1959 resolution but rather an order dated 28 June 1960, contending that the order could have been issued by way of a notification, which indeed occurred on that June date. While the law permits a bus stand to be designated by erecting traffic signs, the Court noted that such a method was not employed in the present case and therefore was excluded from consideration. The Court expressed some doubt about the respondents’ claim that the notification of 28 June 1960 constituted the order referred to in section 64 A, but chose to presume that the contention was correct for the sake of analysis.

If the Regional Transport Authority’s order was truly made only on 28 June 1960, as the respondents maintain, then their application under section 64 A would not have been barred by limitation because the petition was filed before that date. Nonetheless, this technical advantage did not benefit the respondents, because in their petition they sought the quashing of the earlier December 1959 resolution. According to the respondents’ own argument, that December resolution was not an order that fell within the scope of section 64 A and therefore could not be set aside under that provision. Consequently, the Court held that the State Transport Authority’s order, which attempted to set aside the Regional Transport Authority’s December 1959 resolution, was incompetent on its face. The resolution, in the Court’s view, was not an order subject to revision under section 64 A. Accordingly, the State Transport Authority’s subsequent order dated 6 January 1961, which relied on the same reasoning, was also deemed patently erroneous and beyond the Authority’s jurisdiction.

The Court observed that the order of the State Transport Authority was issued without jurisdiction and therefore could be set aside by a writ. It was then argued that the State Transport Authority possessed the power to regard the petition filed under section 64A on 13 April 1960, which remained pending on 28 June 1960—the date of the notification—as an application to set aside the order contained in that notification. The Court disagreed with this proposition, holding that the State Transport Authority could not, of its own motion, treat the petition in that manner. The relief sought in an application under section 64A is determined solely by the petitioner, and the Authority may not alter the petitioner's prayer against his wish. The respondents never requested that their section 64A application be treated as an application to set aside the order contained in the notification of 28 June 1960. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Authority could have treated the April 13 petition as a request to quash the Regional Transport Authority’s order of 28 June 1960, the Authority in fact did not do so.

This conclusion was supported by the State Transport Authority’s order dated 6 January 1961. In that order, when addressing the question of limitation, the Authority based its analysis on the provision that the thirty‑day period prescribed in section 64A must be counted from the date of knowledge of the order sought to be impugned. Such an approach would be inconsistent if the petition had been treated as an application to set aside the 28 June 1960 notification, because the Authority never referred to that notification anywhere in its judgment of 6 January 1961. The operative part of the Authority’s order expressly set aside and cancelled the Regional Transport Authority’s resolution of 3‑4 December 1959 and, as a consequential measure, ordered that “the old bus stand shall continue.” Moreover, in the affidavit filed by the respondents in opposition to the petition under Article 226, the respondents did not claim that the State Transport Authority had treated their section 64A application as an effort to set aside the 28 June 1960 notification. Instead, the affidavit stated that the revision filed before the State Transport Authority was within the prescribed time because it was submitted about a week after the respondents became aware of the Regional Transport Authority’s order. The respondents consequently proceeded on the basis that their section 64A application was directed at the 3‑4 December 1959 resolution. The High Court did not accept the argument that the thirty‑day limitation period should be measured from the date of knowledge of the order being challenged. It held that the respondents’ grievance stemmed from the notification, and therefore their petition under section 64A was not time‑barred. The High Court, however, failed to notice that the petition made no request concerning the 28 June 1960 notification.

June 28, 1960, was the date of the notification that gave rise to the respondents’ grievance. The Court observed that it was unnecessary to examine whether the State Transport Authority might have treated the respondents’ petition filed under section 64A as having been presented on or after that date for the purpose of cancelling the order contained in the notification. In reality, the Authority had not acted in that manner. The Court further held that neither the High Court nor this Court possessed the power to alter the original petition under section 64A and reclassify it as an application to set aside the Regional Transport Authority’s order mentioned in the June 28, 1960 notification. Such an amended application had never been before either of the courts.

The Court explained that, had the respondents themselves filed an application seeking such an amendment, the application would have been dismissed because the thirty‑day period prescribed by section 64A would already have elapsed on the date of filing. The Court noted that, at the times when the State Transport Authority and the High Court issued their respective orders, the statutory thirty‑day limit counted from the date of the notification had already passed. Consequently, on those dates the respondents could not successfully request a amendment to their section 64A petition.

Accordingly, the Court concluded that, if the order of the Regional Transport Authority is to be regarded as having been made on June 28, 1960, the respondents’ petition under section 64A was incompetent. The petition sought to set aside the Regional Transport Authority’s resolution dated December 3‑4, 1959, and under section 64A such a resolution could not be vacated at all. In the Court’s view, the appellant municipality was therefore clearly entitled to a writ quashing the State Transport Authority’s order dated January 6, 1961. The judgment stated: “I would, therefore, allow the appeal with cost.” By majority judgment, the appeals were allowed and the matter was remitted for disposal in accordance with law, with each party bearing its own costs.