The city, according to The Associated Press, also said the tribunal should reconsider its ruling and grant a hearing to attorneys on each side of the case.

The court's November ruling was given without the usual hearing of arguments and merely affirmed a decision by a special three-judge U.S. District Court in Montgomery that such segregation violates the Constitution.

Last Monday the state of Alabama filed a petition which asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision. The special court's ruling struck down city and state laws requiring segregation.

Left Unanswered

The city's petition said the Nov. 13 ruling left unanswered a question of whether the high court had overruled the old "separate but equal" doctrine established by an earlier decision known as the Plessy vs. Ferguson case.

"The city of Montgomery, motivated by a sincere desire to preserve segregation on public buses as far as possible within the framework of the Constitution of the United States," yesterday's petition said, "is left without guidance as to whether all forms of segregation of the races on public transportation systems are invalid.

"A possible deduction from the Supreme Court's order is that Plessy vs. Ferguson has been overruled but this court has not yet said so."

The petition also said that the Supreme Court in earlier decisions had "held firm to the principle that in the absence of a showing of irreparable injury, both great and immediate, federal courts must not enjoin the enforcement of state and local criminal laws."

Old Principle

The city said it was also impossible to determine whether this old principle also had been overruled and asked:

"If local and state officials are to be subjected to federal injunction when they act in good faith to enforce the provisions of criminals enactments, are they, under the Supreme Court's decision of Nov. 13, to be subjected to damage suits under the civil rights act?"

The petition concluded:

"These matters deserve the elucidation which will come from a full argument of this case on the merits."

The petition filed by the city and the state act as an automatic stay on the Supreme Court's official notice of the Nov. 13 decision, pending its ruling on whether to grant or deny the new request. The high tribunal could act on the petitions at its next session on Monday. If it were to deny the petition then, the high court's official notice would go to the special U.S. District Court in Montgomery on Dec. 12 or 13.