The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, which had reserved its orders on a plea seeking to regulate bus services to ply through Madurai-Thirupparakundram Road bridge via Thirupparakundram town, observed that a court of law cannot command a public authority to perform its duty in a specific way.
A division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and R. Tharani observed that a relief of mandamus could not be granted in the absence of violation of any statutory provision or any infringement of fundamental rights on the part of the transport corporation.
The court directed the Transport Corporation to furnish a suitable reply to the petitioner within a period of four weeks.
The court took notice of the fact that sufficient services of buses were operated via railway bridge, Sannathi stop, Pattarai stop and Thirupparankundram town.
Operation of all services through the Thirupparankundram town would result in traffic chaos inside the town.
The petitioner had said that with the opening of the road-over-bridge all the buses plying from Madurai to Thiruparankundram and other places via Thiruparankundram ought to utilise the bridge.
The petitioner contended that city buses continued to use the Madurai-Thirumangalam bypass below the bridge.
