MOHI UDDIN Vs. REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY ROHILKHAND REGION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner had a permit for ply-Ins a stage carriage on the Budaun-Asafpur-Chandausi route in the Rohilkhand region. His permit was valid till the 17th of July 1956. He applied for a renewal of the permit on the 4th of July 1956, but his application was rejected on the ground that he had not complied with Rule 60 of the Motor Vehicle Rules, which required the filing of the application for renewal at least two months before the date on which the permit was to expire. Against the refusal to renew the permit the petitioner went up in appeal but his appeal failed. The appellate authority held that the petitioner should have complied with Rule 60 and that he had not shown sufficient grounds for not making the application for renewal in accordance with that rule. The petitioner now wants the order of the Regional Transport Authority dated the 6th of February 1957 rejecting his application for renewal and also the order of the appellate authority dated 7th February 1958 dismissing his appeal to be quashed by a writ of certiorari. He also wants a writ of mandamus to be issued to direct the Regional Transport Authority to forthwith renew his permit. The main ground urged in support of the petition is that Rule 60 of the Motor Vehicles Rules which prescribes that applications for renewal must be made at least two months before the date of the expiry of the previous permit is ultra vires and the authorities could not therefore insist that it should be complied with.

(2.) The petition is opposed on two grounds. The first is that the rule is intra vires. The second is that in any case the route in respect of which the petitioner had his permit became notified on account of a scheme having been published under which the route was to be worked by the State exclusively the petition has really become in-fructuous and neither of the two reliefs claimed by the petitioner should, therefore, be granted to him.

(3.) Section 58 of the Motor Vehicles Act as it stood before its amendment by Act 100 of 1956 provided for the renewal of the permits. Subsection (2) of that section said: