NASUR UD DIN Vs. STATE TRANSPORT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The decision of this appeal turns upon the true distinction between the substantive part of sub-section (3) of section 63 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (the Act), and the relevant part of the proviso thereto. Since they are to be carefully read, they are reproduced below:

(2.) Civil Writ 906 of 1977 was then filed by the petitioner-appellant. with a prayer that these orders be quashed. The learned single Judge dismissed the writ petition on the following construction of the substantive part of section 63(3) and the proviso thereto, namely, that after an initial agreement is arrived at between these two States for counter- signature of inter-State carriage permits issued by the two States in an agreed proportion up to the number of 20, no further inter-State permit issued by the State of U.P. to the petitioner-appellant could be required to be counter signed by the S.T.A. Delhi, In the absence of a further agreement between the two States to increase the total number of inter-State permits on this route beyond 20, since the petitioner- appellant failed to prove that the two States had agreed to increase the inter-State permits on this route from 20 to 30.

(3.) A formal agreement between the two States was arrived at on 24-10-1957 as per Annexure PI. Clause II of the agreement provided that the then current number of inter-State permits on the Dalhi- Ghaziabad route should be 10 to be shared in the ratio of 7 : 3 between U.P. and Delhi. Clause 2 of the said agreement stipulated that the proportion of the stage carriage permits to be countersigned in future shall be 7: 3 between U.P. and Delhi without disturbing the existing ratio. The State Transport Authorities of the two States subsequently agreed to increase the number of inter-State permits on the route to 20. Still later they agreed to increase it to 30, but the two States as such did not enter into any formal agreement for the last increase. Twenty inter-State permits are already currently held in the agreed ratio by the inter-State permit holders of the two States. Since the petitioner-appellant wanted to have his inter-State permit issued by the Regional Transport Authority, Meerut, U.P., countersigned by the STA, Delhi, beyond the number of 20 inter-State permits and since the agreement between the two States for an increase of inter-State permits beyond 20 could not be proved, the petitioner-appellant failed to obtain the countersignatures of the STA, Delhi, and suffered adverse decisions of the STA, Delhi, the State Transport Appellate Tribunal and also of the learned single Judge. Hence this appeal.