Emperor vs Ram Tahal Singh

Courtney-Terrell, C.J.—The object of this appeal is to obtain a construction of Rule 28 of the rules made under the Motor Vehicles Act of 1914. Clause (1) of that rule is as follows:

No motor vehicle shall be let or ply for hire in any local area or along any public road in the province unless it possesses a special permit in Form G annexed to these rules granted by the District Magistrate, and every such vehicle shall be subject to the conditions prescribed in such permit.

Now the facts as found in the judgment of the Deputy Magistrate are that the respondent who is a public motor vehicle proprietor had a vehicle which he was in the habit of letting for hire and in respect of which he had obtained a permit in the prescribed form. On a particular occasion he allowed five of his friends gratuitously to ride in that vehicle on the public highway. The prescribed form G of the permit forbids the use of the permitted vehicle for the carriage of more than four passengers at a time. The respondent was charged with an offence u/s 16 of the Act for having driven the motor vehicle with more than the permitted number of four passengers.

It was argued on behalf of the respondent and the argument succeeded before the Magistrate that the proper construction of the first clause of Rule 28 was such that the conditions prescribed in the permit did not apply to the motor vehicle save when it was being let or was in fact plying for hire and that inasmuch as on the particular occasion the use of the vehicle was gratuitous that the conditions did not apply.

The first part of the clause means in my view that none but vehicles provided with a special permit may be let or ply for hire and the second part of the clause means that such vehicles, that is to say, such vehicles being provided with a permit, are subject to the conditions. The rule may be more logically put in the form of three propositions as was suggested in the course of the argument by my learned brother Dhavle. The first proposition would be every vehicle plying for hire must have a special permit.

The second proposition is every vehicle having a special permit may ply for hire and the third proposition is that every such vehicle as may ply for hire (that is to say as may be provided with a permit), shall be bound by the terms of the permit, and therefore it is not open to the owner of a motor vehicle in respect of which a permit has been granted to free that vehicle from the conditions of the permit during the time for which the permit is granted by allowing it to carry passengers otherwise than on the condition of it being let or allowed to ply for hire.

We have been assisted in the construction of this rule by the report of an English case Hawkins v. Edwards [1901] 2 K.B. 169, in which a controversy exactly similar to that in this case was raised upon the wording of the English Act. Of course the words of the English Act have no bearing upon the words of the Act nor is the judgment of the Court of that Act binding upon us but the reasoning employed was precisely similar and in that case Lord Alverstone held that the conditions of the license applies to the licensed vehicle for the period of the license irrespective of whether it was in use at the time as a carriage standing or plying for hire and by a parity of reasoning the same conclusion is to be arrived at in this case.

For these reasons the appeal should in my opinion be allowed and as this is a test case and one of importance both to the Government and to the proprietors of motor vehicles I would impose a nominal penalty of Rule 1.

Dhavle, J.

I agree.