Mini Bus Service Scheme quashed

Friday, 21/12/2012

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20121221/punjab.htm#4

Chandigarh : It's the end of the road for so many mini buses in Punjab. A Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, while quashing the Punjab Mini Bus Service Scheme, 2010, today ruled that private mini bus operators in the state were thriving.

"There should be no traces of doubt that the oblique object for which the scheme appears to have been formulated is to shelter the mini bus private operators to run and operate on the indicative or monopoly routes to the exclusion of their competitors." the Bench asserted.

It said that Punjab had a "chequered history" of successive attempts made by the government to favour mini bus operators. "The Punjab Mini Bus Service Scheme, 2010, is hereby quashed and mini bus permits issued or renewed illegally are hereby declared illegal, null and void."

The 111-page judgment was delivered by the Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice RP Nagrath on a bunch of petitions filed by Vijayant Travels and others. The Bench minced no words to say the scheme was patently illegal and a colourable exercise of power to protect existing mini bus operators. It was also ultra vires of Section 99 of the Motor Vehicle Act. Going into technicalities, the Bench said a scheme under Section 99 could be formulated only for areas or routes to be exclusively or partially run and operated by state transport undertakings.

"It is an admitted fact and has not been denied by the respondents that none of the STUs in the State of Punjab own mini buses and are not in a position to operate even on a single route included under the 2010 Scheme," the Bench said.

Moreover, the STUs had not forwarded any proposal in this regard.Their opinion was also not sought by the state government before formulating "the scheme for operation of mini buses by STUs to complete or partial exclusion" of private operators.

"Where is the question of providing efficient, adequate or economical road transport service to the passenger public when the STUs possess neither mini buses nor have expressed their willingness to run and operate on identified routes," questioned the Bench.

The Bench said even after the lapse of two years since the scheme was launched, permit had not been granted to any STU for any indicative or monopoly route.

"However, private mini bus operators whose operations have been protected are undoubtedly thriving upon their monopoly on such routes," the Bench said, adding that the scheme talked of future mini bus operations by STUs, when nothing was being operated at present".

Before parting with the orders, the Bench ruled that a clause in the scheme was unduly tilted in favour of private mini bus operators as it gave them 80 per cent share compared to 20 per cent of that of STUs in all future operations on the indicative routes.