REGIONAL TRANSPORT OFFICER MANDYA Vs. A VINAYAGAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two appeals arise upon the common Judgment and Order delivered by the learned Single Judge upon two writ petitions, thereby the two writ petitions were made absolute and the deposits made by the writ petitioners in each case were directed to be refunded.

(2.) The writ petitioners own tourist vehicles. They were being operated at therelevant point of time upon the authority of Special Permits issued under Section 63(6) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'). It was found, when the vehicles were checked by the motor vehicle authorities within the State of Karnataka, that they were carrying tourists from the State of Karnataka. The vehicles were seized on the basis of the instructions issued by the Commissioner of Transport by the transport authorities of the State of Karnataka and were released only upon the writ petitioners making certain deposits. The writ petitioners filed applications for refund of the deposits. After the same were disallowed, writ petitions seeking such refund came to be filed. As aforesaid, the learned Judge made the writ petitions absolute and directed refund.

(3.) It was submitted before us by Mr. Dattu, learned Government Advocate, thatthe Regional Transport Officer at Chiltoor in the State of Andhra Pradesh had no authority to grant to the writ petitioners the Special Permits under Section 63(6) of the Act empowering them to carry passengers collected from within the Stale of Karnataka. In this behalf he relied upon the Judgment of a learned Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in G. Shaikh Shavalli and Others v Secretary, R.T.A., Ananlhapur, AIR 1982 AP 296. The learned Judge in that case noted that the prayer in the writ petition before him was that the petitioners should be granted Special Permits under Section 63(6) of the Act by the transport authorities of the State of Andhra Pradesh enabling them to take their buses empty into outside States and to pick up passengers there and transport them to the end of their voyage and empty them back at their starling points in those States and drive the buses back to the places within the Slate of Andhra Pradesh empty. The learned Judge took the view that the granting of such a Special Permit was not within ihc competence of the Regional Transport Authority of the State of Andhra Pradesh. In his view, an examination of Section 63(6) of the Act showed that what was contemplated to be granted under that section was a permit to run a Contract Carriage. Under Section 2(3) of the Act "Contract Carriage" is defined to mean a motor vehicle which carries a passenger or passengers for hire or reward under a contract expressed or implied for the use of the vehicle as a whole from one point to another point without setting down along the line of route passengers not included in ihe contract. The concepl of contract carriage was introduced in the Act to subserve the needs of group travel. When a group of people travel together by a transport vehicle, the contract carriage did the job. But the purpose behind granting a contract carriage permil was to cater to the needs of the genuine travelling public as the purpose of the other provisions of the Act is. The provisions of the Act, therefore, authorised the Regional Transport Authority I o grant these contract carriage permits to enable group travel to be conducted within their respective regions. For this purpose of the Act, the State is divided into various regions. Either in granting or refusing contract carriage permits the Act requires the transport authorities to keep the needs of the travelling public in view. In other words, a transport authority would be acting illegally in granting any permit for mere asking and without being satisfied of the existence of a genuine transport need. It could never have been wuhin the contemplation of the Act that the Regional Transport Authority of Anantpur of Kurnool should assess the travelling needs of the people of Bangalore or Mcrkara. The travelling needs of those far off places can only be assessed and met by the local Regional Transport Authorities of those places. The Regional Transport Authorities of the State of Andhra Pradesh were legally incompetent to gram such permits because they were not charged by the Act lo look after the travelling needs of the public living outside their region. They were not in a position to assess the genuine travelling needs of the public living in those far off lands. Without any proper assessment of such need being made, no Regional Transport Authority is empowered by Section 63(6) of the Act or any other provision of the Act to grant any contract carriage permit. Any attempt on the part of these Regional Transport Authorities to make any such assessment would immediately put them on collision of authority with the Regional Transport Authority in those States.