HC upholds Pb govt action of issuing notices to bus operators

A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed the operation of an order issued two months ago by a single bench, which had set aside show-cause notices to private bus operators for cancellation of their stage carriage permits.

A total of 650 show cause notices were issued to private transporters for cancellation of their permits on the directives of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, an official statement issued by the state government here, said.

However, the transporters had approached the High Court and a single judge bench had quashed the notices on May 23, 2018.

Today's order came on an appeal filed by the State of Punjab and another petitioner against a private transport operator.

"The state government had sought to cancel the permits in order to implement its New Transport Scheme, re-formulated in conformity with the previous judgment of High Court in the case of Vijayant Travels and in a bid to clean out the transport system in the State," the statement said.

Defending the action and policy of the state government, Additional Advocate General, Rameeza Hakeem, brought to the notice of the court that this matter stood referred as the division bench was already monitoring the implementation of the judgment in Vijayant Travels, which had subsequently been upheld by the Supreme Court, the statement said.

The division bench of the High Court, asserted, "our observations in Vijayant Travels were completely ignored by the Single Judge. We want to break this transport mafia and we want to have clean and new players to enter the transport field in Punjab".

The bench accepted the request of senior advocate Puneet Bali, appearing for the private transport operators, that they be given time of three weeks to submit their replies before the Regional Transport Authorities.

The next date of hearing in the matter has been fixed for August 23.