J JACOB Vs. REGIONAL TRANSPORT OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner is the President and Chief Functionary of a Charitable Society registered under the Travancore-Cochin Literary Scientific and Charitable Societies Act, 1955. The Society was formed with the intention of helping the mentally and physically handicapped children. The society engages itself in various activities aimed at improving the conditions of the handicapped. Since 1992, the Society is running a school for the handicapped at Panangad in Ernakulam District were specially trained teachers and the staff members provide training and care to the mentally retarded with the intention of making them self supporting citizens. The society picks up the student from their homes in the morning and takes them back to their homes after their classes. The service of the Society is provided to the children either free of cost or at very nominal charges. For the purpose of picking up the mentally retarded students from their homes and taking them back, the Society has a tempo traveler van,a 14 seater bearing registration No. KL-7/D 5902. The school van is used only for the purpose of conveying the mentally retarded children and staff of education centre from their respective homes to the school and back.

(2.) No counter affidavit has been filed by the respondents and the above averments made in the original petition stand uncontroverted. I, therefore, find no reason not to accept the said facts as correct.

(3.) Petitioner submits that the school van was purchased in the year 1993. When the vehicle was taken to the 1st respondent's office for registering the same, he was informed by the authorities that it should be registered as ' a private service vehicle'. As instructed by them, he submitted the necessary application forms and the vehicle was registered as a 'private service vehicle'. Petitioner says that the registration as a private service vehicle was insisted upon by the authorities in spite of the petitioner informing them that the vehicle would be used only as a school van and that the Society was a charitable organization engaged in helping the handicapped. It is further said that school vans like that of the petitioner are registered under the category 'Omnibus'. But the petitioner was compelled to register the school van as a private service vehicle and the entire tax due on the vehicle upto 31-12-1994 was paid as directed by the 1st respondent's office.