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1961-62--Guntur District 1962-63--Nellore and Chittor Districts 1963-64--Cuddapah and Kurnool Districts 1964-65--Ananthapur and East Godavari Districts 1965-66--Vishakhapatnam and Srikakulam Dis- tricts."
In the impugned schemes, however, the Corporation made an alteration in the order of the Districts successively to be taken up for nationalisation. It would be seen that after Guntur District which was neatly completed by the end ,of 1961 the next districts to be taken up during the 1962-63 would have been Nellore and Chittor Districts in that order and it was only thereafter that the District of Cuddapah and after it Kurnool would be taken up. That was the recommendation of the Anantharamakrishnan Committee and which had been accepted by the Road Transport Corporation as late as April, 1962 and it may be mentioned in this connection that the Vice-Chairman of the Road Transport Corporation was himself a member of the Anantharamakrishnan Committee. By its resolution dated, 4th May, 1962, the Road Transport Corporation decided that instead of the above order Kurnool, Nellore and Cuddapah Districts in that order would be chosen for nationalisation and in the three schemes which were formulated in pursuance of this Resolution the western half of Kurnool was selected as the area to be nationalised in the first instance.

Two further matters were also urged as supporting this plea of mala fides. The first was that with a view to carry out the original programme which was approved and confirmed by the Corporation in their Administration Report published on April 7, 1962, the routes in the Nellore District which according to the Anantharamakrishnan Commitee Report had to be taken up next were surveyed and though the elements of contiguity and profitable nature were both present in regard to the extension of the services to Nellore, contiguity by reason of the fact that some buses belonging to the Corporation and running from Guntur were already plying in Nellore District and the profitable nature since these were evaluated by the Anantharamakrishnan Committee whose recommendations were examined and approved by the Corporation, the nationalisation of the routes in Nellore was, however, abandoned and that of the western part of Kurnool was decided upon. The other fact was that the National Defence Council passed a reso lution as late as the first week of November, 1962, urging the deferring of further nationalisation of transport services for the present and it was in the teeth of. this resolution which was passed at the meeting at which the Chief Minister himself was present that the schemes of nationalisation of transport services in Kurnool district was published by the Corporation on the 29th November, 1962.

The learned Advocate-General realising this position, desired us to proceed on that basis and his submission was that assuming that the allegations made against the Chief Minister were made out and that he had bias and ill-will against the appellants, still there was no proof that the Corporation which was an autonomous body was similarly moti- vated and that unless the appellants were able to establish it, bias or ill-will on the part of the Chief Minister would be irrelevant We agree as already indicated that he is right in this submission. This takes us to the consideration of the ques- tion as to whether the Corporation carried out the mandate of the Chief Minister as was alleged by the appellants or whether the impugned schemes were formulated by them as a result of the opinion which they themselves formed that they were necessary in public interest for the purposes set out in s. 68-C of the Act. On this matter there is an affidavit by the Corporation denying the allegation made by the appellants that the Corporation acted merely as the tool of the Chief Minister in order to carry out his behest, and it is there asserted that the decision to frame the schemes was taken as a result of the independent opinion formed by them after an examination of the entire question. The acceptability of these rival assertions were debated before us most strenuously during the hearing of these appeals. Certain facts already set out have a bearing on this ques- tion, and these we shall recall. The Anantharamakrishnan Committee had laid down the criteria for determining the order in which areas and routes had to be selected for nationalisation, and applying these principles had drawn up a list of the remaining districts in which nationalisation should be successively taken up. If that order was follow- ed, Nellore would have been the next district to be taken up and the turn of the Kurnool District would have come up after nationalisation of the routes in the Nellore, Chittor and Cuddapah districts were completed. This report had been submitted to the, Corporation in February, 1961 and after further detailed examination of these recommendations the Corporation had accepted the recommendation regarding the order of the Districts to be taken up for nationalisation and had embodied this approval in its Administration Report dated March 24, 1962 which was published in April, 1962. It is only necessary to add that the Corporation had also had the routes in Nellore surveyed a little while before. In February, 1962, however, the general elections to the Assembly and the Parliamentary Constituencies had taken place and the allegations of the appellants related to the feelings that arose during the course of elections. The present Chief Minister assumed office as Chief Minister on March 12, 1962. On April 19, 1962, it is ad- mitted that he summoned a conference of the Corporation and its officials at which, and this also is admitted, he sug- gested that the nationalisation of bus routes in the Kurnool District should be taken up first. Now the Chief Minister himself made a statement as to what he did at this meeting. It is the case of the appellants that it was the mandate given to the Corporation by the Chief Minister at this Conference that brought about this change in the order of the districts to be taken up for nationalisation and not the independent opinion of the Corporation as to what was needed in the public interest as required by s. 68-C. As regards his part at the conference, the Chief Minister himself stated in the Assembly on July 26, 1962:

The conference, as stated earlier, addressed by the Chief Minister was on the 19th of April, 1962. This was follow-

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ed by the resolution of the Corporation of May 4, 1962. This ran:

.lm15 "The Corporation noted the discussion which took place in the office of the Chief Minister on 19th April, 1962, in regard to programme of nationalisation of Road Transport Services during the Third Five Year Plan period and resolved that during the Third Five Year Plan three more districts in the order mentioned could be nationalised, viz., Kurnool, Nellore and Cuddapah in view of difficult financial position........ Chief Executive Officer explained that as there is a depot at Kurnool and as Kurnool is contiguous to the nationalised districts, it would be easier to nationalise Kurnool rather Nellore district. The nationalisation could be extended to the Nellore district after Kurnool district is nationalised. The Corporation therefore resolved that Kurnool district could be taken up for nationalisation in preference to Nellore." In the counter-affidavit which the Corporation filed to, the writ petition the Chief Executive Officer after denying that the Corporation was actuated by mala fides in framing the three impugned schemes, stated that the acceptance by the Corporation of the recommendation of the Anantharamakrishnan Committee was tentative and that it could not fetter them from discharging its powers and duties under the statute. It gave the following reasons for the decision to nationalise Road Transport Services in a part of the Kurnool district in preference to other areas: (1) because there is a Government depot at Kurnool, (2) Kurnool is contiguous to the entire Telangana area which is rationalised and also contiguous to the nationalised area of Guntur. It also stated that the choice was made in the interest of the maintenance of service contiguity and coordination and it added that "the impending completion of the Rangapur Bridge over the river Krishna, which when completed would facilitate the operation of direct services from Hyderabad through Kurnoof to the areas beyond." Besides it asserted that the Corporation which was an autonomous statutory authority was vested with powers under the Road Transport Act and it was', therefore, malicious to allege that the decision by the Corporation to prepare the impugned schemes was either influenced by the, Chief Minister or was under a mandate from him and it asserted that in formulating the schemes the necessary opinion under s. 68-C was formed by itself.