SUJIT KUMAR Vs. REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Admit. Government Pleader takes notice for respondents 1 and 2. Standing Counsel takes notice for the fourth respondent. Notice to the third respondent is dispensed with as it is unnecessary to issue notice to the third respondent for adjudicating the issue raised in this writ petition. As agreed to by the counsel on either side, the writ petition is disposed of at the admission stage itself by this judgment. The matter arises under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 ('the Act' for short).

(2.) The petitioner has applied to the first respondent for grant of a regular permit to operate a stage carriage service. The application preferred by the petitioner has been rejected by the first respondent as per Ext.P1 order holding that the route is over saturated and it had already taken a decision to refrain from issuing further permits on the route. The decision of the first respondent as referred to in Ext.P1 is Ext.P Ext.P2 is a decision taken on applications preferred by the third respondent, an association of private bus operators and the fourth respondent, the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, requesting the first respondent to refrain from issuing further permits on the route. According to the petitioner, Ext.P2 decision was never brought to his notice and Ext.P1 order is, therefore, vitiated for non compliance of the principles of natural justice. It is also the case of the petitioner that an application preferred under the Act for grant of a permit to operate a stage carriage service cannot be rejected on the ground that the route is over saturated. Since Ext.P1 order is vitiated for non compliance of the principles of natural justice, according to the petitioner, he is entitled to challenge the same in this proceedings under Art. 226 of the Constitution, notwithstanding the alternative remedies available to him. Hence this writ petition.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner contended that if the first respondent had already taken a decision that fresh permits need not be issued as the route is over saturated, and if the first respondent proposed to decide the application preferred by the petitioner solely based on the said decision, the petitioner is certainly entitled to be heard on the correctness of the said decision. According to the learned counsel, Ext.P1 being an order issued solely based on an earlier decision taken by the first respondent without affording the petitioner an opportunity of hearing on the correctness of the said decision, the same can be regarded only as an order passed without compliance of the principles of natural justice. Relying on the decision of the Apex Court in Mithilesh Garg Vs. Union of India (AIR 1992 SC 443), the learned counsel for the petitioner also contended that an application preferred under the Act for grant of a permit to operate a stage carriage service cannot be rejected on the ground that the route is over saturated.