KANWALJIT SINGH Vs. STATE TRANSPORT APPELLATE TRIBUNAL DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution instituted by the petitioner against the State Transport Appellate Tribunal and the State Transport Authority, Delhi, in relation to an application made by the petitioner for the grant of a Stage Carriage Permit on the route Delhi Fountain to Laxmi Nagar. This application was filed, according to the petition after the S. T. A. had fixed the strength of the number of Stage Carriage Permits to be granted over this route as two and invited applications. It is also stated that there were several applicants for the same; the petitioner himself had applied for one of the permits and another firm, M/s. Mohan and Co., had applied for both permits. The Authority granted one permit to M/s. Mohan and Co., and all the other applicants were found ineligible for the grant of the second permit except M/s. Mohan and Co., and the petitioner. It appears that in Jan., 1971, the petitioner and M/s. Mohan and Co., were called by the State Transport Authority for a personal hearing (this date seems to have been wrongly mentioned as Jan., 1974 in the petition and elsewhere). At that stage, it was found that M/s. Mohan & Co., had sold their bus and were found ineligible for the permit. This left only the petitioner as the sole candidate. The petitioner claims that he is an experienced transport operator who should have been granted the permit on merits; but the Authority rejected even the petitioner's application and decided to invite fresh applications for the grant of a permit.

(2.) The petitioner then appealed under S. 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, to the Tribunal; this appeal was accepted and the case was remanded back to the State Transport Authority for deciding whether the petitioner should be granted the permit. It is urged by the petitioner that the remand order was bad because the appeal should have been accepted and the permit granted to the petitioner. Against the order of remand, the petitioner has filed another Writ Petition (C. W. No. 419/75), which is still pending in this Court. Prima facie, there seems to be no explanation why the matter was remanded back to the S. T. A. because the matter could have been finally decided by the Appellate Authority which is fully competent under Section 64 of the Act to grant or reject the application in the same way as the S. T. A. For the sake of convenience, I reproduce the reasons for the remand as reproduced in the present petition:

(3.) After the remand, the State Transport Authority passed a resolution on 16th July, 1974, which is Annexure 'B' to this petition and instead of deciding whether the petitioner should be granted the permit, seems to have gone somewhat on a tangent by passing the following resolution: