# M. NAINA MOHAMMED v. K. A. NATARAJAN & OTHERS

- **Citation:** [1976] 1 S.C.R. 102
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1975-07-23
- **Case number:** '. Civil Appeal No. 98 of 1975
- **Bench:** A. N. Ray, K. K. Mathew, V. R. Krishna Iyer, S. M. FAzAL ALI
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/m-naina-mohammed-v-k-a-natarajan-others-6465
- **Pages:** 3

## Headnote

B
Constitution of lndia, Art. 226--Jurisdiction of High Court-Scope of.
The Regiona·l Transport Authority gran·ed a permit to the appellant but
thi-; decision was reversed by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal. In a
petition under Art. 226 of the Cons itution a single Judge of the .High Court,
on an examination of the merits of the case, reversed the view of the State
1"ransport Appellate Tribunal.
On appeal, a Division Bench of the High Court
held that a full scale reappraisal of the points was in excess of the jurisdiction
C
of the single Judge under Art. 226.
The Divis:on Bench restored the order
of the State Transport Appellate Tribunal.
On appeal to this Court, remitting the case to the State Transport Appella'e
Tribunal,
HELD·. The boundaries of the High Cou.rt's jurisdiction under 1\rt. 226 of
the ConstLution are clearly and strongly built and :::annot be biea<:hed without
risking jurisprudential confusion.
The power of the High Court under Art. 226
D
be supervisory in nature. [103E]
5ti Rania Vik1s Sen•ice (P) Ltd, v. C. Chandrasekharan, [1964_1 5 S.C.R.
869, referred to.
The single judge had undertaken an evaluation of the merits on his o•.-vn:
which was beyond his jurisdiction. The Division Bench disposed of the case in a
shon paragraph Ylhich hardly did justice to the order appealed against.
But
while reversing the order appealed against valid reasons had to be adduced.
E
\\'hiii;: the Division Bench was justified in observing that, sitting on the \Vrit
side, judicial review should h~ve been more restricted than while sitting on
the appellate side, its own judgment was vulnerable because of the plain finding
,.
that \1ihat was not pertinent was taken into :::onsideration by the A()pellate
Tribunal. [1030. H; 104A-B]

## Text

/
102
M. NAINA MOHAMMED
v.
K. A. NATARAJAN & OTHERS
July 23, 1975
[A. N. RAY, C.J., K. K. MATHEW, V. R. KRISHNA IYER AND
S. M. FAzAL ALI, JJ.]
B
Constitution of lndia, Art. 226--Jurisdiction of High Court-Scope of.
The Regiona·l Transport Authority gran·ed a permit to the appellant but
thi-; decision was reversed by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal. In a
petition under Art. 226 of the Cons itution a single Judge of the .High Court,
on an examination of the merits of the case, reversed the view of the State
1"ransport Appellate Tribunal.
On appeal, a Division Bench of the High Court
held that a full scale reappraisal of the points was in excess of the jurisdiction
C
of the single Judge under Art. 226.
The Divis:on Bench restored the order
of the State Transport Appellate Tribunal.
On appeal to this Court, remitting the case to the State Transport Appella'e
Tribunal,
HELD·. The boundaries of the High Cou.rt's jurisdiction under 1\rt. 226 of
the ConstLution are clearly and strongly built and :::annot be biea<:hed without
risking jurisprudential confusion.
The power of the High Court under Art. 226
D
be supervisory in nature. [103E]
5ti Rania Vik1s Sen•ice (P) Ltd, v. C. Chandrasekharan, [1964_1 5 S.C.R.
869, referred to.
The single judge had undertaken an evaluation of the merits on his o•.-vn:
which was beyond his jurisdiction. The Division Bench disposed of the case in a
shon paragraph Ylhich hardly did justice to the order appealed against.
But
while reversing the order appealed against valid reasons had to be adduced.
E
\\'hiii;: the Division Bench was justified in observing that, sitting on the \Vrit
side, judicial review should h~ve been more restricted than while sitting on
the appellate side, its own judgment was vulnerable because of the plain finding
,.
that \1ihat was not pertinent was taken into :::onsideration by the A()pellate
Tribunal. [1030. H; 104A-B]
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION '. Civil Appeal No. 98 of 1975.
From the Judgment and Order dated 25-7-1974 of the Madras
High Court of Judicature at Madms in Writ Appeal No. 519 of 196&.
K. S. Ramamurthi and A. T. M. Sampath, for the appellant.
M. K. Ramamurthi and Vineet Kumar, for respondent no. 1.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
KRISHNA IYER, J.-A spiral of reversals is the fate of this litigative
battle between the appellant and the first respondent over a permit to
ply a bus on the route between Madurai and Paramakkudi, m Tamil
N adu.
While its admission into this Court was by special leav~, the
first round of the contest was fought before the RTA (Regional Tran_sport Authority) which, on an evalU'ation of the relative merits and
demerits of the rivals. granted the permit to the present appellant, but
this victory was short-lived because, at the second stage of the legal
bout, the STAT (State Transport Appellate Tribunal) held that the
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M. NAINA V. K. A. NATARAJAN (Krishna lyer, /.)
1()3
rcsponde;1t before us had better claims.
The worsted appdlant invoked the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Art. 226 aad the
learned Single Judge, who heard the petition, re-judged the relevance
and weight of the points, pro and con, and as a result of this adjudicatory exercise of facts, demolished the order of the STAT.
Tc1c learned
Judg" disagreed with the conclusion of the STAT instead ot sending
the case back for a fresh look at the meri,s of the matter. set aside the
permit granted to the respondC'at and affirmed the award in favour of
the appellant.
Thereupon, the respondent moved a Division Bench of
that Court which felt that a full-scale re-appraisal of the points lor and
against such cJoaimant was in excess of the jurisdiction of the Single
Judge Jnder Art.
226, although it noticed that certain factors
not
rcleva.it to the adjudication had been taken into consideration by the
STAT.
Consequently, the order of the learned Judge was ;ct aside,
the result being that the respondent's permit was restored.
The appellant urged that the decision of the Division Bench of the High Court
was utterly wrong and somewhat casual, while that of the learned
Single Judge was careful, elaborate and correct.
Of course, this view
of the matter was hotly controverted by counsel for the 1st respondenl
but, niter haviag heard both Shri K. S. R>amamurthy, for the appellant,
and Shri M. K Ramamurthy, for the respondent, we are satisfied that
the reluctant course of remitting the whole case to the ST AT for a
de nova disposal is called for as a matter of Jaw and in the interests of
justice
The boundaries of the High Court's jurisdiction under Art.
226
arc clearly and strongly built and carraot be breached without risking
jmi,prudcntial confusion (Sn' Rama Vilas Service (P)
Ltd. v.
C.
Chandrasekharan(').
The power is supervisory in
nature, although
tbe Judges at both the tiers, in the instant case, have unwittingly slipped
into the subtle, but fatal, error of exercising a ki'ad of appeliak review.
Shri M. K. Ramamurthy, for the respondent, was right in pointing
out that the learned Single Judge went into the factmn 'and weight of
the claims which could be put in the scales in choosing the better of
the two applicants for the permit.
However, the Court rightly poiated
out that some relevant factors had be~a ignored by the STAT (for
example. 'that the first respondent's history sheet was not clean') and
included in the judicial verdict factors which were extraneous, such
as "that the bus of the petitioner did not, in fact, ply from 2-9-65 to
4-12-65', this being attributable to non-payment of surcharge rather
than operational inefficiency.
A reading of the learned Single
Jud~e's
iudoment leaves us in no doubt that he had undertaken an evaluallon
br the merits on his own.
This, undoubtedly, was beyond the jurisdiction of the High Court.
Nor is it possible to support the direction
that if there were errors of law vitiating the STAT's finding, the case
aeed f'Ol go back for fresh consideration but could be finally decided
by the High Court itself.
In Writ Appeal, the leaned Chief Justice, sp~aking for the Division
Bench of the High Court, disposed of the case m a. short paragraph
which hardl.y did justice to the order appealed agamst.
May be that
(i)-(i964)-S C.-S R-:-869.
104
SUPREME COURT REPORT
[1976] 1 s.c.R.
order was wrong and unsustainable, but while reversing it valid reasons
had to be adduced.
All that we find in the appellate judgment is a
partial admission that extraneous cmsiderations were inputs of the
order of tile ST AT and a brief \disposal of the whole matter in a single
•cete~ce, as it were-"Even so, there is nothing in the order of the
Tnbunal to support it."
While the Division! Bench was perh-aps justifiec in observing that while sitting on the writ side, judicial r~view
should have bee.1 more restricted that while sitting on the appellate
side, its own judgment was vulnerable because of the plain finding that
what was not pertinent was taken into consideration by the STAT. For
instance, the learned Chief Justice observed : 'It is no doubt true
that the no,1-pcrformancc of service after the grant was made, cannot
go into the computation and the reference relating to night-halt might
we11 have been avoided in its discussion.'
'The non performance of
service', which is slightly obscure, but we read it in the context as meaning the failure to ply the bus on the route la question subsequent to the
gr<Lnt of the permit.
We express no opinion on the soundness of the
observation but it is clear that the Division Bench itself has plainly
accepted the position that what was not, according to it, relevant had
gone into the reckoning wheμ the STAT awarded the permit to the
-appellant.
In this view, this judgment cannot also be sust~ined.
The fair course would, therefore, be to set aside the judgment under
appeal and send the whole case back to the ST AT to hear the case
afresh, consider relevant factors bearing upon 'public interest' as highlighted in s.4'i of the Motor Vehicles Act and dispose of the appeal
before it in accordance with law, guided by the decisions of this Court
and untrammelled 'by any observations made either by the Single Judge
or by the Division Bench.
Currently, the respondent is plying his bus O'.l the route and we
direct that the status quo be maintained and he will continue to operate
on the route until the appeal is disposed of by the STAT.
Of course,
the RTA passed its orders as early as 1966 November and if it thinks
that public interest demands the need for an extra bus to ply on the
route to cope with the traffic, it will be open to the RTA to gmnt a
permit, pending disposal of the appeal, to the present appellant.
The fluctuating fortunes of the combatants for the permit have been
such that it is appropriate to direct both parties to bear their costs
throughout.
P.B.R.
Case remanded.
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