C R GOWDA Vs. MYSORE REVENUE APPELLATE TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Writ Petition pertains to certain proceedings relating to the grant of stage carriage permit under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act 1939 (hereinafter referred to as the M. V. Act). The present 4th respondent applied for a stage carriage permit for plying his bus from Bangalore to Kunigal via Tavarekere, Magadi and Kempanahalli, and back. As part of the route lay within Bangalore District and the remaining part in Tumkur District, it was an inter -regional route. It was on 14 -6 -1958 that the 4th respondent filed his application; the substance of that application was published in the Mysore Gazette dated 25 -12 -1958. On 13 -2 -1959, the application of the 4th respondent was considered by the Bangalore Regional Transport Authority and it was resolved that a permit be granted to the 4th respondent. The present petitioner was one of the objectors before the R.T.A.; he was an operator on the route Bangalore to Kallur, a portion of which was common with the route for which the 4th respondent had sought the permission. He appealed to the State Transport Appellate Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the S.T.A.T.) against the resolution of the R.T.A. granting the permit to the 4th respondent. The appeal filed by him was dismissed by the S. T. A. T. The further appeal against the decision of the S.T.A.T to the Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the M.R.A.T.) by the present petitioner was unsuccessful and was dismissed on 3 -1 -1961. (The present petitioner as well as another objector had both preferred appeals to the S.T.A.T. and then to the M.R.A.T. it was by common judgments that each of the said Tribunals disposed of those appeals). Thereafter, the present writ petition has been filed. Sri M.R. Venkatanarashnachar has appeared for the petitioner and Sri P.K. Shamsunder for the 4th respondent and Government Pleader Sri T. Radha Krishna for the first respondent (The Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal).

(2.) THE petitioner, in seeking to obtain a writ of certiorari quashing the proceedings which took place before the Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal and the Authorities constituted under the Motor Vehicles Act, has urged three grounds : The first one is that the substance of the 4th respondent's application for the stage carriage permit had not been published in accordance with Section 57(3) of the M. V. Act and that the route for which the permit was granted to the 4th respondent was not in accordance with what had been published under Section 57(3). The second ground of attack is that the Regional Transport Authority, Tumkur, had not followed the relevant rules in counter signing the permit and that therefore, the permit granted to the 4th respondent was of no legal validity in so far as it related to that portion of the route which lay within the jurisdiction of the Tumkur Regional Transport Authority. The last point which has been urged on behalf of the petitioner is that as the R. T. A., Bangalore did not consist, at the relevant time of non -official member, the Constitution of this R. T. A., was not in accordance with Section 44(2) of the M. V. Act and that, therefore the permit issued in favour of the 4th respondent, is liable to be quashed. As against these contentions, it has been argued by Sri Shamsunder for the 4th respondent that none of these grounds had been urged either before the S.T.A.T. or the M.R.A.T and that the, petitioner should not be permitted to urge them now for the first time, in these proceedings "Government Pleader (Sri Radhakrishna) has refuted the allegation of the petitioner that the Regional Transport Authority had not been constituted in accordance with the requirements of Section 44(2) of the M. V. Act. After hearing the arguments of the learned Counsel, we are satisfied, for the reasons stated below, that this writ petition cannot succeed.

(3.) SO far as the second contention is concerned, the stand which the petitioner had taken before the Authorities under the M. V. Act was that the permit (granted to the 4th respondents), in so far as it related to the route within Tumkur District, was not valid as there was no proper compliance with the rules under Section 63(1) of the M. V. Act for dispensing with the counter -signature of the Tumkur. R. T. A. It seems to us, that the petitioner's attack on this ground was misconceived; because, it is not a case in which there is any omission of the counter -signature by the Tumkur, R. T. A. As a matter of fact, the permit does bear the counter -signature of the Tumkur R. T. A. In view of this fact, Sri Venkatanarasimhachar has, very rightly, not advanced before us any contention based on any omission of such counter -signature.What is now sought to be urged by him is that there has been non -compliance with the requirements of Sub -Section (3) of Section 63 of the M. V. Act as there was no previous publication and the hearing of objections, if any, by the R. T. A., Tumkur before counter -signing the permit. As pointed out by Sri Shamsunder on behalf of the 4th respondent any objection on the ground of non -compliance with the requirements of Section 63(3) of the M. V. Act, was not at all urged by the petitioner before any of the Authorities under the M. V. Act. In urging that the petitioner ought not to be permitted to raise now, such an objection, Sri Shamsunder has relied on a decision of this Court reported in M. C. Krishna Murthy v. Mysore Revenue Appellate Tribunal, (AIR 1963 Mys 329), wherein it has been indicated (at para 16), that inter -regional permits which operate without counter -signature by virtue of a rule under Section 63(1), are a class of permits which are in addition to inter -regional permits granted in the ordinary way and which acquire validity on counter -signature.When it is found that the permit in the present case does not belong to that category and when it actually bears the counter -signature of the Tumkur R. T. A., it would not be fair now, to allow the petitioner to attack the validity of the permit on the ground that before making the counter -signature, the Tumkur R. T. A. has not followed the procedure required under the Act.