Holding

Objections involving a comparison of pre‑existing services with those proposed in a scheme are within the ingredients of section 68C and therefore admissible under section 68D, while personal objections unrelated to the statutory criteria are not, and the State Government’s refusal to issue summons was not illegal.

Summary

The petitioners, a group of private road‑transport operators, challenged the Uttar Pradesh Government’s approval of a scheme that nationalised certain bus routes in favour of the State Transport Undertaking (STU) under sections 68C and 68D of the Motor Vehicles Act. They argued that the scheme was not necessary in the public interest, that the objections they raised – especially those comparing the existing private services with the proposed STU service – were improperly rejected, and that the State Government illegally refused to summon witnesses or compel document production. The Supreme Court examined the scope of permissible objections under section 68D, held that objections seeking a comparison of pre‑existing services with the scheme are within the ambit of section 68C and thus admissible, but personal objections unrelated to efficiency, adequacy, economy or coordination are not. It also ruled that the State Government, lacking statutory power to issue summons, could lawfully decline the petitioners’ applications for witness summons. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed, leaving the impugned order and the scheme intact.

Issues considered

The categories of objections that may be filed under section 68D of the Motor Vehicles Act.
Whether objections that compare existing private road‑transport services with the service envisaged in a scheme fall within the scope of section 68C and are admissible.
Whether ‘personal’ objections not relating to the criteria of efficiency, adequacy, economy or coordination are admissible.
Whether the State Government has statutory authority to summon witnesses or compel production of documents in proceedings under sections 68C and 68D.
Whether the rejection of the petitioners’ applications for summons and document production renders the impugned order illegal.

Legislation cited

Motor Vehicles Act, 1959s. 68A, s. 68B, s. 68C, s. 68D, s. 68E
Road Transport Corporations Act, 1950s. 3
Uttar Pradesh State Transport Services (Development) Rules, 1958s. Rule 5(v), s. Rule 7(2)(iv)

Subjects

Motor Vehicles ActSection 68CSection 68Dobjectionsroad transport nationalisationState Transport Undertakingcomparative analysis of servicesquasi‑judicial procedurewitness summonsevidence production

Judgment

1005

SARASWATI DEVI & ORS. A
v.
STATE OF U.P. & ORS.
November 4, 1980
{Y. V. CHANDRACHUD, C. J., P. N. BHAGWATI, V. R. KRISHNA IYER, B
S. MURTAZA lf'AZAL ALI AND A. D. KOSHAL, JJ.]
Motor Vehicles Act, 1959, sections 68C and 68D, scope of-Objections
,L_ involving comparison of the pre-existing road transport services wi1h those
prepared in a scheme are relatable to the ingredients of section 68C and are,
therefore admissible under section 68D of the Act.
c
"t Uttar Pradesh State Transport Services (Development) Rules, 1958, rules
5(v) and 7(2)(iv), scope of-Summoning of witnesses and production of wit-
11esses, explain~-d.

Dismissing the appeal by special leave, the Court

HELD: (I) A bare reading of sections 68A to E contained in Chapter D
IV-A, which was added to the Act by Central Act JOO of 1956, makes it clear
that they provide for nationalisation of road transport services. However,
such nationalisation, in view of the provisions of section 68C, is not nationa-
lisation for nationalisation's sake but nationalisation with a view to the
achievement of certain specified objects. Unless a scheme conform~ to the
two conditions referred to in section 68C, namely, (a) the S.T.U. i'S competent
to prepare and publish a scheme under section 68C only after it has formed E
the opinion that it is necessary in the public interest that road transport
services covered by the scheme should be run and operated by itself,
whether to the exclusion, complete or partial, of ·other persons or otherwise;
and (b) the necessity for the road transport services te- be run and operated
by the S.T.U. must flow, in its opinion, from the purpose of providing an
efficient, adequate, economical and properly coordinated road transport service,
it will fall outside the ambit of section 68C. [l012A, 1013H, 1014A-Cl F
Section 68D gives the right to certain persons, associations and authorities
to file objections to a scheme published under section 68C within the specified
period of thirty days of its publication and also lays down the procedure
for the hearing and disposal of such objections by the State Government.
The procedure provided in section 68D is designed to - (a) enabie parties
affected by the scheme to point out flaws therein; (b) enable the State
G
Government to find out which flaws, if any, the scheme suffers from, and
(c) enable the State Government either to remedy the flaws by a suitable
modification of the scheme or to rescind the scheme altogether. Under section
68(2), every objector or his representatives and the representatives of the
S.T.U. have to be given an opportunity of being heard in the matter and it
is only thereafter that the State Government has to exercise its power to
approve or modify the scheme, which power includes the power not to approve
the scheme at all and to drop it in its entirety. [1014D-F] H
Malik Ram v. State of Rajast/zan, [1962] 1 S.C.R. 978 at 981, followed.
10@'6 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1981] 1 S.C.R.

A Section 68D does not specify the type of objections envisaged by it but
then their purpose being to point out flaws in the scheme they must be confined
to the matters covered by se,~tion 68C. If the opinion forming the basis of
the scheme does not suffer from errors such as may render it abnoxious to
the dictates of section 68C and on the other hand, conforms to the conditions
laid down in that section, the scheme would be unobjectionable. Objections
may thus be made to show: (a) that it is not necessary in the public interest
B for the concerned road transport services to be operated by the S.T.U.; (b) that
it is not necessary in the public interest that such services be taken over by
the S.T.U. to the complete exclusion (if such exclusion is envisaged by the
scheme) of other persons and that their partial exclusion would suffice; (c) that
it is not necessary in the pub.lie interest that such services shall he taken over
by the S.T.U. even to the partial exclusion of others; (d) that the scheme is
not calculated to provide an 1~fficient road transport service; (e) that the
c scheme would not provide an adequate road transport service; (f) that the
road transport service envisaged by the scheme would not be economical; or
(g) that the road transport service provided for by the scheme would suffer
from lack of proper coordination. [1014H, 10!5A-E]
Objections falling outside these seven categories would not be admissible
inasmuch as they would not have anything to do with any of the condition,;
which a scheme must satisfy in order to be covered by section 68C. [l015E-FJ
D
2. In order to find out if the scheme fulfils the requirements of section
68C a comparison of the attributes of the two services, such as quality,
capacity, financial implications and coordination would certainly fall within
the scope of the inquiry to b1: conducted· by the State Government, although
a comparison would not be permissible for the sole purpose of finding out
whether the private operators should be given a preference over the State
E Transport Undertaking. If such a comparison as held to be permis-
sible is ruled out, the result would be to shut out from the enquiry held by
the State Government under section 68D most of the material relennt for
determination of the validity of the scheme - a result contemplated neither
by section 68D nor by the decision or this Court in (1967] 3 S.C.R. 329.
[1018A-C]
Objections calculated to show that a scheme does not prnvide a road
F transport service which can be considered efficient, adequate. economical or
propei-ly coordinated would certainly lie; and the adjectives "efficient", "ade-
quate", "economical" and "prope.rly' coordinated are not absolute but more
or less comparative terms. [10l7E-FI].
Capital Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society, Bhopal and Others v. T!ie
State of Madhya Pradesh and Others, [1967] 3 S.C.R. 329, explained.
G 3. Objections of a "personal" nature may be of two types: (i) those
challenging the scheme on the ground that it harms an existing operator and,
(ii) those which indicate the details of the services afforded by an existing
operator for the purpose of showing that service envisaged by the scheme
would in comparison not be efficient, adequate, etc. Objections of the second
type would be admissible, while those of the first type, would be wholly
irrelevant to the determination of the validity of the scheme in view of the
H postulates of section 68C and would, therefore, be inadmissible. [I018E-G]
Gul/apalli Nageswara Rao and Others v. Andhra Pradesh State Road
Transport Corporation and Another, [1959] Suppl. 1 S.C.R. 319, distinguished.
SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Koshal !.) 1007

4. It is true that the State Government was acting in the discharge of A
its quasi-judicial functions and it could devise its own proce~ure fin the
absence of express provisions to the contrary) so that its functions could be
effectively discharged. Further, when the statute gives the power to the State
Government to afford to the objectors a reasonable opportunity of being heard
and to take evidence, oral as well as documentary, in support of their objec-
tions, the power to send letters of request to witnesses to appear and give
evidence or to produce documents is inherent in the situation and needs B
no statutory sanction, although; the power to enforce their attendance or
compel them to produce documents is Jacking on account of. absence of con-
ferment thereof by a statute. [10210-F]
Nehru Motor Transport Co-operative Society Limited v. The State of
Rajasthan, [1964] 1 S.C.R. 220, followed.
5. Sub-rule (5) of rule 5 of Uttar Pradesh State Transport Services (Deve- c
lopment) Rules, 1958 serves a salutary purpose and, that is, that· the inquiring
authority may shut out all evidence which is sought to be brought on the
record but which is either irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible. [1022G-H, 1023A]
6. In the instant case, no right of the appellants can be said to be infringed
when their applications for summoning witnesses and production of docu-
ments were rejected by the State Government and the rejection i' not illegal. D
[1022E-F]
Capital Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society, Bhopal and Others v. Tiu
State of Madhya Pradesh and Others, [1967] 3 S.C.R. 329; applied.

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 1755 of
1980.
E
Appeal by Special Leave from the Judgment and Order dated
8-8-1980 of the Allahabad High Court in Civil Misc. Writ Petition
No. 4376/69.
S. N. Kackar, R. B. Mehrotra and Pramod Swarup for the
Appellants.
F
0. P. Rana and Mrs. Shobha Dikshit for Respondent No. 1.
Yogeshwar Prasad, Mrs. Rani Chhabra, P. K. Pillai and R. N.
Trivedi for Respondent No. 2.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
G
KoSHAL, J.-This appeal by special leave is directed against a
judgment dated the 8th August 1980 of a Division Bench of the
Allahabad High Court dismissing a petition instituted by the 18
appellants under article 226 of the Constitution of India in which
the reliefs prayed for were -
(a) that the order dated the 19th July, 1969 (hereinafter H
referred to as the impugned order) passed by the Deputy
Secretary (Judicial), Government of Uttar Pradesh,
1008 SUPREME COURT REPORTS 11981] 1 S.C.R.

A rejecting all the objections filed by the appellants to a
scheme (hereinafter called the impugned scheme) published
on the 21st January 1961 in the Government Gazette of
Uttar Pradesh under section 68C of the Motor Vehicles ......
Act 1939 (for brevity, the Act) be set aside as illegal,
and
B
(b) that the notification published iq the said Gazette dated
. the 7th November, 1970 and approving the impugned
scheme (for short, the 1970 notification) be quashed.
2. The notification dated the 21st January 1961 declared that
the State Government was of the opinion that "for the purpose of
c providing an efficient, adequate, economical and properly co-ordi-
nated road transport service, it is necessary in the p·ublic interest
that road transport services on the routes mentioned at item No. 2
of the annexed schemes should be run and operated by the State
transport undertaking to the complete exclusion of other persons"
and the impugned scheme was being published on that account under
D
section 68C of the Aot read with rule 4 ( 1) of the Uttar Pradesh
State Transport Services (Development) Rules, 1958 (for short, the
rules). The impugned scheme envisaged the plying of buses on
the route Gorakhpur-Khajni-Gola via Dhuriapur and Malhanpur
exclusively by the State transport undertaking (hereinafter described
E as the S.T.U.) and invited all persons whose interest was affected
by it to file objections thereto within 30 days of its publication in
the Official Gazette.
The impugned scheme was later on modified by different notifi-
cations and three allied routes were qrought withln its purview.
Supplementary objections to the scheme as amended were put
F forward by persons interested.
Shri S. K. Bhargava, Deputy Secretary (Judicial) to the U.P.
Government rejected all the objections and approved the scheme
through the impugned order, in pursuance of which the 1970 notifi-
cation was published in the Government Gazette.
.G 3. On behalf of the 18 appellants (out of whom appellants
Nos. 1 to 17 are transport operators who were plying their buses
on the routes covered by the impugned scheme while appellant
No. 18 is the Motor Operators Association, Gorakhpur) the
following grounds were put forward before the High Court in support
of the prayers made :
H (i) The impugned scheme was vitiated by mala fides inasmuch
as it was the outcome of action taken by Shri Hanumant
Singh Negi, Deputy Transport Commissioner, U.P., who had
SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Koshal, J.) 1009

threatened Shri Bajrangi Lal, Pairokar for one of the A
petitioners, namely, Shri Kashi Prasad Gupta, that the
disputed route would be nationalised in case . the latter
pursued in the Supreme Court the matter which had earlier
been decided against him by the High Court.
(ii) The impugned order did not deal at all with objections of
B
a personal nature which had been filed by the appellants
and which, inter alia, indicated that the scheme would
operate to the great disadvantage of the appellants all of
whom were plying buses on the disputed route and had
invested huge sums of money for that purpose.
(iii) The impugned order did not record specific findings on any c
of the objections of a "personal nature" and was liable
to be quashed for that reason alone.
(iv) It was incumbent on the author of the impugned order to
compare the services rendered by the appellants· with
those to be rendered by the S.T.U. That not having been
done, the impugned order and the 1970 notification were n
both vitiated.
4. The High Court went at length into the question of mala fides
artd rejected the contention of the appellants in that behalf mainly
on the ground that it was not Shri Hanumant Singh Negi who had
initiated the nationalisation of the disputed route but that it was E
the State Government under whose decision the impugned scheme
was formulated.
In support of ground (ii) reliance on behalf of the appellants
was placed before the High Court mainly on Gullapalli Nageiwara
Rao and Others v. Andhra Pradesh Stai'e Road Transport Corpora-
tion and Another, (1) which was decic:Ied by a Bench of five Judges F
of this Court. The crucial question before the Court in that case
was whether the authority. deciding the objections under section 680
of the Act was bound to act judicially. Subba Rao, J. (as he then
was), who answered the question in the affirmative on behalf of the
majority consisting of himself, Das, CJ., and Bhagwati, ., dealt at
G
length with the provisions of sections 68C and 68D of the act and,
while concluding that the mat!er partook the character of a dispute
between two parties, observed :
"The .citizen may object to the scheme on public grounds or
on personal grounds. He may oppose the scheme on the ground
that it is not in the interest of the public or on the ground H
that the route which he is exploiting should be excluded from
(I) (1959] Suppl. 1 S.C.R. 319.
1010 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1981) 1 s.c.R.

A the scheme for various reasons. There is, therefore, a proposal
and an opposition and the third party, the State Government
is to decide that Us and prima facie it must do so judicially.
The position is put beyond any doubt by the provisions in the
Act and the Rules which expressly require that the State Gov-
ernment must decide the dispute according to the procedure
B prescribed by the Act and the Rules framed thereunder, viz.,
after considering the objections and after hearing both the
parties. It therefore appears to us that this is an obvious case
where the Act imposes a duty on the State Government to
decide the act judicially in approving or modifying the scheme
proposed by the transport undertaking. ~ . . . . . . . . The scheme
c propounded may e:xclude persons from a route or routes and
the affected party is given a remedy to apply to the Government
. and the Government is enjoined to decide the dispute between
the contesting parties. The statute clearly, therefore, imposes
a duty upon the Government to act judicially. Even if the
grounds of attack against the scheme are confined only to the
D
purposes. mentioned in s. 68C-we cannot agree with this con-·
tention-the position will not be different, for, even in that
case there is a dispute between the State transport undertaking
and the person excluded in respect of the scheme, though the
objections are limited to the purposes of the scheme. In either
E view the said two provisions, sections 68C and 68D, comply
with the three criteria of a judicial act laid down by this Court."
(emphasis supplied)

Emphasis before the High Court was laid on the under-lined
portions of the above observations. On the other hand, attention of
F the Court was invited to Capital Multi-Purpose Co-eperative Society
Bhopal and Others v. The State of M.P. & Others. (1) on behalf of
the State for the proposition that the objections to the impugned
scheme had to be related to the four purposes indicated in section
68C of the Act. After giving consideration to the matter the High
Court held :
"There can be no quarrel with the proposition that an objection
of a personal nature can be filed but it should be for the
purposes of showing that the four purposes indicated in section
68C cannot be achieved. · In other words objections of the
nature that. the petitioners will suffer hardShip and there will be
H financial loss to the petitioner or that the petitioners have

(1) [1967] 3 S.C.R. 3.2!1.
SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Koshal, !.) 1011

invested large amount cannot per se be sufficient to nullify a A
scheme of the nature referred to above unless they have a
material bearing on the purposes indicated in section 68C of the
Act. When a scheme is framed for nationalisation of a route,
whether wholly or partly, the necessary consequence will be
that the persons who have invested their money in purchasing
vehicles will be displaced and that there will be loss in their B
earnings. If this could have been the ground for rejecting or
modifying a scheme, no scheme could be taken up. A bare
perusal of section 68C indicates that the purpose of the scheme
is to provide an efficient, adequate, economical and properly
co-ordinated road transport service which is necessary in public
interest, and such a scheme will be liable to be approved under c
the provisions of the Act. The objections of personal nature in
the instant case in our opinion fail to r;stablish that the four
purposes which are sought to be achieved by the scheme will
not be achieved and for that reason the scheme should either
be rejected or modified."
D
Ground (iii) was repelled by the High· Court with a remark
that even if objections of a personal nature were covered by section
68C the impugned order was not liable to be quashed merely on
the ground that its author did not record specific findings thereon.
Support for this view was sought from a Full Beach decision of the
same Court reported as Khuda Dad Khan v. Stdte of U.P. and E
others(1)

The .Jast ground of attack against the impugned order and the
1970 notific~ion also did not fittd favour with the High Court as,
according to it, in Capital Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society Bhopal
and Others v. The State of M.P. & Others (supra), the Supreme Court F
had taken the view that it was not necessary for the concerned autho-
rity to compare the services rendered by the private operators with
those to be expected firom the S.T.U.
It was in these premises that the High Court passed the judg-
ment under appeal. G
5. Out of the grounds . put forward before the High Court on
behalf of the appellants, two, namely, those listed at serial Nos. (i)
and (ii) above were not pressed before us by their learned counsel,
Shri S. N. Kacker, who, however, argued the point covered by
ground (iv) with great force and also challenged the finding recorded
by the High Court in relation to ground (iii) . In order to determine H

(I) [1979] A.L.J. 1249.
1012 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1981] 1 S.C.R.

A the questions raised before us and canvassed by learned counsel for
the parties it is necessary to undertake an analytical study of sections
68A to 68E contained in Chapter IVA which was added to the
Act by Central Act 100 of 1956. Section 68A contains two defini-
tions. According to it --

B " (a) 'road transport service' means a service of motor
vehicles carrying passengers or goods or both by road for hire
or reward.;
"(b) 'State transport undertaking' i;neans any undertaking
providing road transport service, where such undertaking is
carried on by,-
c
(i) the Central Government or a State Government;
(ii) any Road Transport Corporation established under ·¥
section 3 of the Road Transport Corporations Act,
1950;
D (iii) any municipality or any corporation or company
owned or controlled by the Central Goverru:Ilent or
one or more State Governments, or by the Central
Government and one or more State Governments."

Section 68B gives over-riding effect to the provisions of Chapter
E IVA. Contents of sections 68C and 68D are reproduced below :

"68C. Where any State transport undertaking is of opinion
that for the purpo~e of providing an efficient, adequate, econo-
mical and properly co-ordinated road transport service, it is
necessary in the public interest that road transport services in
F general or any particular class of such service in relation to any
area or portion thereof should be run and operated by the State
transport undertaking, whether to the exclusion, complete or
partial, of other persons or otherwise, the State transport under-
taking may prepare a scheme giving particulars of the nature
of the servioes proposed to be rendered, the area or route pro-
G posed to be covered and such other particulars respecting thereto
as may be prescribed, and shall cause every such scheme· to be
published in the Official Gazette and also in such other manner r
as the State Government may direct."

"68D. (1) On the publication of any scheme in the Official
H Gazette and in not less than one newspaper in regional language
circulating" in the area or. route which is proposed to be covered
by such scheme-·
SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Koshal, J.) 1013

(i) any person already providing transport facilities by A
any means along or near the area or route proposed
to be covered by the scheme;
(ii) any association representing persons interested in the
provision of road transport facilities recognised in tllis
behalf by the State Government; and
B
(iii) any local authority or police authority within whose
jurisdiction any part of the area or route proposed to
be covered by the scheme lies,
may, within thirty days from the date of its publication in the
Official Gazette, file objections [o it before the State Government.
c
"(2) The State Government may, after considering the
objections and after giving an opportunity to the objector or his
representatives and the representatives of the State transport
undertaking to be heard in the matter, if they so desire, approve
or modify the scheme.
D
"(3) The scheme as approved or modified under sub-section
(2) shall then be published in the Official Gazette by the State
Government and the same shall thereupon become final and shall
be called the approved scheme and the area or route to which it
relates shall be called the notified area or notified route :

"Provided that no such scheme which relates to any inter-State
route shall be deemed to be an approved scheme unless it has
been published in the Official Gazette with· the previous approval
of the Central Government."
Sub-section (1) of section 68E gives to the S.T.U. power to F
cancel or modify at any time any scheme published under sub-section
( 3) of section 68D and provides that "the procedure laid down in
section 68C and section 68D shall, so far as it can be made appli-
cable, be followed in every case where the scheme is proposed to be
cancelled or modified as if the proposal were a separate scheme."
Sub-sec~ion (2) of section 68E confers on the State Government G
the power to modify a scheme published under sub-section (3) of
section 68D after giving the S.T.U. and any other person likely to
be affected by the proposed modification an opportunity of b@ing
heard in respect thereof.
6. A bare reading of the sections noted above makes it clear H
that they provide for nationalisation of road transport services. How-
ever, such nationalisation, in view of the provisions of section 68C,
4--{) S. C. India/ND /81
1014 SUPREME COURT REPORTS f1981] 1 S.C.R.

A is not nationalisation or nationalisation's sake but nationalisation
with a view to the achievement of certain specified objects. A break-
up of the section brings out the following es:>ential features.
(a) The S.T.U. is competent to prepare and publish a scheme
under section 68C only after it has formed the opinion that
:B it is necessary in the public interest that road transport
services covered by the scheme should be run and operated
by itself, whether to the exclusion, complete or partial, of
other persons or- otherwise.
(b) The necessity for the road transport services to be run and
operated by the S.T.U. must flow, in its opinion, from the
c purpose of providing an efficient, adequate, economical and
properly coordinated road tranlsport service.

Unless a scheme conforms to these two conditions .it will fall
outside the ambit of section 68C.

D Section 68D gives the right to certain persons, associations and
authorities to file objections to a scheme published under section 68C
within the specified period of 30 days of its publication and also
fays down the procedure for the hearing and disposal of such
objections by the State Government. An important feature of sub-
section ( 2) 0£ the section is that (every objector or hls representa-
E tives and the representatives of the S.T.U. have to be given an
opportunity of being heard in the matter and it is only thereafter
that the State Government has to exercise its power to approve or
modify the scheme, which power includes the power not to approve
the scheme at all and to drop it in its entirety), as held in Malik Ram
v. State of Rajasthan [1952] 1 S.C.R. 978 (981).
F
The procedure provided in section 68D is thus designed to-
(a) enable parties affected by the scheme, to point out flaws
therein,
(b) enable the State Government to find out which flaws; if any,
G
the scheme suffers from, and
(c) enable the State Government either to remedy the flaws by Y
a suitable modification of the scheme or to rescind the
scheme altogether.

H 7. This brings us to the main point of controversy in the case,
that is, the nature of objections which parties affected by a scheme
may prefer to it. Section 68D does not .specify the type of objections
SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Koshal, J.) 1015

envisaged by it but then their purpose being to point out flaws in the A
scheme they must be confined to the matters covered by section 68C.
If the opinion forming the basis of the scheme does not suffer from
errors such as may render it obnoxious to the dictates of
section 68C and on the other hanjd, conforms to the conditions laid
down in that section, the scheme would be unobjectionable. Objec-
tions may thus be made to show:- B

(a) that it is not necessary in the public interest for the con-
cerned road transport services to be operated by the S.T.U.;
( b) that it is not necessary in the public interest that such
services be taken over by the S.T.U. to the complete
exclusion (if such exclusion/ is envisaged by the scheme) c
of other persons and that 'their partial exclusion would
suffice;
( c) that it is not necessary in the public interest that such ser-
vices shall be taken over by the S.T.U. even to the partial
exclusion of others ; D
( d) that the scheme is not calculated to provide an efficient
road .transport service ;
( e) that the scheme would not provide an adequate road trans-
port service ;
(f) that the road transport service envisaged by the scheme
would not be economical ; or
(g) that the road transport service provided for by the scheme
would suffer from lack of proper coordination.

Objections falling outside the seven categories above set out
would not be admissible inasmuch as they would not have anything F
to do with any of the conditions which a scheme must satisfy in
order to be covered by section: 68C. To this conclusion there is no
challenge from either side, but then it has been vehemently contended
on behalf of the appe:Jlants that a comparison of the road transport
services operating on the route covered by a scheme with those
G
envisaged by the scheme itself may be necessary in order to find out
if the scheme conforms {o the provisions of section 68C and this
contention is controverted by learned counsel for the respondents
on the strength of Capital Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society Bhopal
and Others v. The State of M.P. & Others,( 1 ) wherein Wanchoo, J.,
speaking for a Bench of this Court which consisted of himself, H
Bachawat and Ramaswami, JJ., observed :
(1) [1967] 3 S.C.R. 329.
1016 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1981] 1 S.C.R.

A "We are further of opinion that there is· no question of
consideration of comparative merits of the State Transport
Undertaking and the private operators in the con1text of
Chapter IV-A. As we have said already Chapter IV-A was
enacted flor nationalisation of road transport services in accor-
dance with the amendment made in article 19(6) of the Consti-
B tution. The nationalised road transport under that Chapter can
only be run by the State Transport Undertaking as defined in
section 68-A(b) of the Act. In view of that fact, if
nationalisation! has to come as envisaged by the amendment of
the Constitution, the only body which can run the nationalised
service is the State Transport Undertaking, and in those circum-
c stances. we fail to see any necessity for comparison between a
State Transport UnJdertaking on the one hand and individual
operators on the other.
"Apar.t from this general consideration, we are further of
opinion that ordinarily no question of comparative merits based
D on past record between a State Transport Undertaking and
individual operators can arise, Section 68-C provides that the
State Trairsport Undertaking has to run an efficient, adequate,
economical and properly co-ordinated road transport service,
and for doing that it does not take up just one route and put
one transport vehicle on it. . It takes up a large number of
E
routes and puts a large number of transport vehicles
on them in order to run an integrated service whether for
passengers or for goods, or for both. In these circum-
stances it is difficult to see how one can compare such
an undertaking with individual private operators who are run-
F ning one transport vehicle or so on individual routes. Secondly,
it would be unusual for the State Transport Undertaking to be
run\ning transport vehicles on individual routes before it produces
a scheme for nationalisation of the type provided for in
Chapter IV-A, though it may be conceded that this may not be
quite impossible, for some State transport undertaking might
G have entered into competition with private operatQrs and might
have obtained permits under Chapter V; (see flor instance
Parbani Transport Co.-operative Society Ltd. v. The Regional
Transport Authority, [1960] 3 S.C.R. 177). Even so, when
the State transport undertaking takes action under Chapter IV-A
of the Act there can. in our opinion be no question of compariso111 ·
H between a State transport undertaking running an integrated
service and individual operators running one transport vehicle
or more on individual routes. We are therefore of opinion that
SARASWATI DEVI v. u.P. STATE (Koshal, J.) 1017

the authority cannot be said. to have gone wrong in not asking A
for past records of the Corporation in the present case for
~-.
purposes of such comparison. It is true that section: 68-C
requires that the scheme should be in public interest. But unless
the scheme is· shown not to be efficient, adequate, economical
and properly coordinated, it will in our opinion generally follow
that it is in the public interest. We do not think therefore that B
the comparative merits of the Corporation as against individual
operators require to be judged under Chapter IV-A in the public
interest."
A careful study of these observations would show that they were
meant to exclude from consideration a comparison between the S.T.U. c
and private operators for the purpose of finding out which of them
should be preferred on the basis of their past performance an:d not
to declare irrelevant a comparison between the service envisaged by
the scheme and pre-existing services for the purpose of determining
whether the scheme as framed provides for the operation of a
service which would be efficient, adequate, economical and properly
coordinated. Normally, as pointed out by Wanchoo, J., a S.T.U.
takes up a large number of routes and puts a large nbmher of
vehicles on them in order to run an integrated service while private
operators cater to individual routes and may not, therefore, be
in a position to provide what is described in section 68C as
E
',
"a properly coordinated service". That does not mean, however,
l that all schemes, howsoever framed, would in the very nature of
things provide for services which conform to the quality insisted
upon by section 68C. As stated above, objections cakulated to
show that a scheme does not provide a road transport service which
~ I
can be considered efficient, adequate, economical or properly coordi- F
nated would certainly lie; and the adjectives "efficient", "adequate",
"economical" and "properly coordinated" are not absolute but more
or less ·comparative terms. A service consisting of only one round
trip per day may be adequate if the traffic on the concerned route is
Jean. On the other hand, a hundred round trips may not be
adequate for a route burdened with heavy traffic. If a private operator G
is running 10 buses either way and is sought to be replaced by the
S.T.U. under a scheme which makes provision only for five rounjd
trips per. day the proposed road transport service cannot be consi-
dered adequa·e if the number of round trips required to fully1 cope
with the traffic is more than five. Efficiency of the service covered '
by a scheme may similarly have to be determined in comparison to H
that which pertains to the pre-existing services: Economics and proper
coordination of the service proposed in a scheme may again be
1018 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1981] 1 S.C.R.

A matters for which a comparison with the pre-existing services is
called· for. In order to find out, therefore, if the scheme fulfils
tlie requirements of section, 68C a comparison of the attributes of
the two services, such as quality, capacity, financial implications and
coordination would certainly fall within the scope of ~he inquiry to
be ~onducted by the State Government, although a comparison,
B would not be permissible for the sole purpose of finding out whether
the private operators should be given a preference over the S.T.U.
If such: a comparison as we have held to be permissible is mled
out, the result would be to shut out from the enquiry held by the
State Government under section 68D most: of the material relevant
for determination of the validity of the scheme-a result contem-
c plated neither by section 68D rior by Wanchoo, J., in the observations
above quoted, which, on the other hand, make it clear that the
proposed scheme may certainly be shown (in whatever way it is
possible) not to fulfil the criteria of efficiency, adequacy, economy
and proper coordination. The comparison ruled out by him was
D not between the merits of the rival services but between the expecta-
tions from their operators in view of their respec~ive past records
includirig these relating to other areas and routes. The High Court
thus erred in arriving at the conclusion that The Capital Multi-
purpose case eschewed all comparison and its finding in that behalf,
in so far as it runs counter to the opinion expressed by us above,
E is set aside.
8. We may in pass.Ing refer to what are called objections of a
"personal" nature. These may be of two types : ( 1) those chal-
lenging the scheme on the ground that it harms an existing operator
and, (2) those which indicate the details of the services afforded by
F an existing operator for the purpose of showing that the service
envisaged by the scheme would iu comparison not be efficient,
adequate, etc. Objections of the second type, as we have just above
concluded; would be admissible for the reasons stated. Those of
the first type, however, would be wholly irrelevant to the deter-
mination of the validity of the scheme in view of the postulates of
G section 68C and would, therefore, be inadmissible. This proposition
may appear at first sight to run counter to those observations of
Subba Rao, J., in Gullappalli's case (supra) which we have extracted
above but this is not really so. Those observations were made in
the course of consideration by this Court of 'the sole question whether
the State Government, in deciding objections under section 68D,
H acted judicially or purely in an administrative capacity. The answer
ro that question, according to Subba Rao, J., depended on whether
the matter before the State Government amounted to a /is ; and it
SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Kosha/, J.) 1019

was in that connection that he said that the citizen may object to A
the scheme on public grounds or on personal grounds and also that
the CoUl't did not agree with the contention that the grounds of
~i objeotion against .the scheme were confined. only to those mentioned
in section 68C. The Coui1t was not called upon to decide as to
whether the scheme of sections 68C and 68D embraced objections
of a "personal" nature or not and it was only incidentally that B
reference thereto was made. We conclude .that Gullapalli's case
(supra) is no authority for the proposition that "personal" objec-
tion not confined to the scope of the requirements of section 68C
~re admissible under section 68D.
c
9. Referring to ground (iii) pressed in the High Court on behalf
of the appellants, Shri Kacker made a serious grouse of the fact
that the impugned order did r~ot, tO .much as mentioned those obje€-
tions made by the appellants which called for a comparison of the
typa held by us to be permissible and htt contended that tlle
impugned order was bad on that a<:rount. In reply learned colin~el D
for the respondents argued that at the hearing before the State
Government no such objections were pressed. Our attention has
been drawn by Mr. Kacker to paragraphs 14, 20(a), 21, 26, 43,
49, 51, 61, 63, 64, 73 and 75 o! the statement of objections forming
anncxure F to the petifion under Article 226 of the Constitution
before the High Court. A perusal of those paragraphs makes it E
abundantly clear .that quite a few of the objections were such as
were related to it.he purposes mentionled in section 68C and called
for a comparison. of the proposed service with the existing one.
That some of these objections were pres<;:d before the State Govern-
ment is apparent from the written arguments which were submitted F
to Shri S. K. Bhargava who is the author of the impugned order
and which were appended to the petition under Article 226 of the
Constitution of India before the High Court · in the form of
ArnJ3xure J. The stand of the respondents to the contrary is thus
not well founded. But then we further find that in the impugned
order its author has devoted five paragraphs to the objections which G
cn:1ed for comparison of both the 'types above discussed. In para-
graphs 24 to 27 the impugned order rightly rejects the objections
which were based on a comparison of the S.T.U. with the private·
operators in relation to their respective past performances, and in
doing so relies correctly on The Capital Multi-purpose case. It
proceeds then (in paragraph 28) to take note of the further opinion. H
expressed in the same case from whkh it follows that a scheme· may
nevel'thele~s be shown not to be in public interest by demonstrating
1020 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1981] 1 S.C.R.

A that it does not provide for a service which would be efficient,
adequlllte, economical and properly coordinated ; but then dismisses
the matter with 'the remark that the appellanlts had not been able
"to show anything substantial which may justify this inference that
the proposed scheme in respect of the routes in question would
not be efficient, adequaite, economical and properly coordinated'',
B a remark which is obviously meant to dispose of those objections to
the seheme which called for a comparison of the service envisaged
by it with that· a.Iready available. The cryptic remark no doubt
neither lists the objections disposed of by it nor discusses the
relevant evidence but the reason for the absence of a discussion Jn
this behalf appears to be that no such evidence had been produced
c before the State. Government. And if that be so, much fault cannot
be found with 'the brevity of the contents of paragraph 28.

However, Mr. Kacker made another grouse in this connection,
namely, .that the State Government refused to summon witnesses and
D to enforce the production of documents at the request of the appel-
lants and that in doing so it had acted illegally and by thus shutting
out evidence had really denied to the appellants any real opportunity
of being heard. We find that when the case was at the evidence
stage before the State Government, the appellants submitted two
applications requesting that witnesses, one of whom, namely, the
E Secretmy, Legislative Assembly, U.P. was to bring the proceedings·
of that Assembly, relating to the speech of the Chief Minister deli-
vered on the 13th July 1967 i:r.; refation to the budge~ of the Trnnsport
Department, be summoned through letters of request and examined.
The applic<Hions were rejected by Shri S. K. Bhargava through an
order dated 1the 20th March 1969, the relevant part of which runs ·---.'
F
thus : \
"It is noit necessary to issue letters of request as prayed for. The
objectors can only examine those witnesses whom they them-
selves brought. It is also not necessary tio send for any record
as prayed."
G
No further reasons appear in; the order for a reject,ion of the prayer
made for issuing letters of request but it seems that while making the
order Shri Bhargava had in mind the provisions of sub-rules (2) and
( 4) of rule 7 of: the Rules and of the absence from . the Act and
the Rules of any express provision conferring on the State Govern-
H ment the .right to issue process for enforcing the attendance of wit-
nesses and the production of documents. The said two sub.rules
may be reproduced :
( SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Kasha!, J.) 1021

"(2) The said officer shall fix tlle date, time and place A
for the hearing of the objections and issue notices thereof to
the objector, and the representatives of the State transport under-
taking, calling upon them to appear before him in\ person, or.
through a duly authorised agent or counse'l and 'to produce their
oral and documentary evidence on the date fixed for hearing."
B

" ( 4) Subject to the provisions of sub-rule ( 7) the objector
and the State transport undertaking shall produce their evidence
and witnesses, necessary and relevant to the inquiry, on the first
date fixed for the hearing."
c
The contepltion raised on behalf of the respondents is that the power
· the exercise of which the appellants sought by their applic11tions had
not been conferred by the Act or the Rules on the State Govern-
ment and that, therefore, the order passed by Shri Bhargava was
.correct. We find substance in this contention. It is true that the D
State Government was acting in the discharge of its quasi-judicial
functions and it could devise its own procedure (in the absence of
express provisions to the contrary) so that its functions could be
effectively discharged. Further, when the s'tatute gives the power to
E
the State Government to afford to the objectors a reasonable opportu-
~ nity of being heard and to take evidence, oral as well as documen-
tary, in support of th~ir obj:ctions. the power to send letters of
request to witnesses to appear and give evidence or, to produce
documents is inherent in the situation and needs no statutory sanction,
F
although the power to enforce their attendance or compel them to
produce documents is lacking on accoun't of absence of conferment
thereof by a statute. This view finds support from Nehru Motor
Transport Co-operative Society Limited v. The State of Rajasthan, (1)
in which also the argument raised was that there could be no
G
effective hearing without a provision for coercive process compelling
attendance of witnesses and production of ·documents. It was
pointed out in. that case that the Rajasthan Rules did ·not provide
for compelling .the attendance of witnesses and that it was enough
if the authority took evidence of witnesses whom the objector
H
produced before it. It was also remarked that the authoi;hy might
(i) [1964] I S C.R. 220.
1022 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1981] 1 S.C.R.

A help the objector to secure their attendance by issue of summonses,
though in the absence of any provision in the !aw, the witnesses
might or might not appear iq answer thereto.

But then the question arises whether an order of the State
Government: rejecting a prayer for issuance of summons or ktiers
B of request would be illegal. This question was answered in the
negative by Wanchoo, J., in the Capital Multi-purpose case (supra)
with the following observations :

"Further, reliance in this connjection is placed on the observation
of this Court in Nehru Motor Transport Co-operative Society's
c case (supra) that the authority might help the objectors by issuing
summonses. This observation in our opinion does n<?t mean,
in the absence of any provision in the Act or the Rules, that
the authority was bom1/d to summon witnesses even though the
persons summoned were not bound to obey the su:tmnonses as
there was no provision in law foc issue of such summonses. The
D use of the words 'by issue of summonses' in the circumstances of
that case was by oversight, for issue of summonses presum~ that
there is authority to issue them and the person to whom they are
issued is bound to obey. But: in the absence of such power
all that the authority can do is to issue letters merely requestin,g
persons to appear and it is open to those persons to appear or
E
not. In this situation if an authority decides not to issue such
letters it cannot be sai.d that there was no effective hearing."

These observations have: our concurrence and we do not find that
any right of the appellants was infringed when their applications for
summoning witnesses and production of documents were rejected.
F
Here we may briefly advert to another aspect of the matter to
which our attention was drawn on behalf of the respondents. Sub-
rule ( 5) of rule 5 of the Rules states :
"A person filing an objection and desiring to be heard shall also
G submit along with the memorandum of objections, a list of docu-
ments and wi~nesses with their names and addresses and a brief
summary of: the nature and type of evidence which each such
witness is likely .to give."

No compliance with this rule was made by the appellants when the
H two applications just above considered were filed. The sub-rule serves
a salutary purpose and,. that is, that the inquiring authority may
shut ouv all evidence which is sought to be brought on the record
SARASWATI DEVI v. U.P. STATE (Koshal, J.) 1023

but which is either irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible. The two A
applications, therefore, suffered from a serious flaw by reason of
which alone they merited dismissal unless the summary insisted upon
by sub-rule (5) was supplied before they were disposed of.

10. In 1the result the appeal must fail in spite of the fact that
we have accepted one main contention raised by Mr. Kacker, namely, B
that objections involving comparison of the pre-existing services with
those proposed in: a scheme are relatable to the ingredients of sec-
tion 68C and are, therefore, admissible under section 68D of the
)c Act. Accordingly it is dismissed but with no order as to costs.

S.R. Appeal dismissed. c