P VENKAIAH Vs. G KRISHNA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The bone of contention in this appeal by special leave consists of two stage carriage permits granted under the Motor Vehicles Act (hereinafter called the Act) in relation to the route Chirala Railway Station to Vetapalem, the claimants to which now are Venkaiah (the appellant), Krishna Rao (respondent No. 1) and Nagendrudu (respondent No. 5). By the impugned judgment a Division Bench of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh has dismissed an appeal under clause 15 of the Letters Patent and has upheld the judgment of a single Judge of that Court by which the order of the State Government was reversed and the permits were granted to respondents Nos. 1 and 5.

(2.) Before we proceed to lay down the facts leading to the present contest we may refer with advantage to Rule 212 of the A. P. Motor Vehicles Rules, 1964 which have been framed under the Act and are hereinafter referred to as the Rules. The marginal note to that rule reads:

(3.) We may now state the relevant facts. In the year 1957 road transport was nationalised in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Just before that the appellant, respondent No. 1 and respondent No. 5 held 1, 3 and 1 stage carriage permits respectively, but on nationalisation they were deprived thereof. Subsequently the appellant and respondent No. 5 were granted one such permit each while none was issued in favour of respondent No. 1. For the two routes in question the Regional Transport Authority (hereinafter referred to as the RTA) considered the claims of 20 applicants out of which 16 appear to have been eliminated in pursuance of the provisions of Cl. (iii) of Rule 212. The case was then taken up for consideration under Clause (iv) and out of the remaining four applicants, each one of the three present contestants was awarded 5 marks, i.e., one mark for business or technical experience and 4 for residential/sector qualification. On further consideration of the case the RTA granted one permit to the appellant and the other to respondent No. 5. In appeal the State Transport Authority (hereinafter referred to as the STA) noted the fact that respondent No. 1 did not hold any stage carriage permit at the time of the consideration of the respective claims of the parties and was, therefore, a new entrant within the meaning of that expression as used in sub-clause (a) of Clause (ii) of Rule 212, while the appellant and the respondent No. 5 did not have that qualification as each one of them was holding one such permit at the relevant point of time. One permit was, therefore, granted by him to respondent No. 1 and the other to respondent No. 5 who was held to have an edge over the appellant for the reason that although each of them had to his discredit a conviction for an offence under the Act, the offence brought home to the appellant was more serious than that of which respondent No. 5 was found guilty. The third round of litigation took place before the State Government in revision under Section 64A of the Act. The State Government held that the appellant and respondent No. 5 were entitled to preference over respondent No. 1 because of their longer experience in the field of motor transport (in addition to full sector qualification possessed by each of them) in spite of the fact that respondent No. 1 was a "new entrant." The matter was then agitated by the rival claimants in two petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India filed before the High Court, a learned single Judge of which held that respondent No. 1 was a new entrant who was entitled to preference over the other contestants by reason of the provisions of sub-cl. (a) of Cl. (ii) of Rule 212. The other route was granted by the learned single Judge to respondent No. 5 on the same ground as had weighed with the STA in that behalf. As already stated the judgment of the learned single Judge was upheld in the Letters Patent Appeal.