RAJAPPA KAWATI Vs. G HANUMANTHA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard learned counsel for the appellant. Going by the principle laid down in J.M. Desai vs. Roshan Kumar1 it has to be held on the facts of mis case that learned Single Judge has committed error is not dismissing the writ petition on the ground that petitioner-respondents 1& 2 have no locus standi to challenge the grant of permit to the appellant herein to run a stage carriage on the route specified in the permit. Locus is determined by knowing whether the person who has moved the Court is aggrieved or not and in the judgment aforementioned it has been pointed out mat the test is to find out,whether any interest of the petitioner is injured. Those whose interests or rights are violated clearly fall in the category of persons aggrieved. Those, however, whose rights or interests are not at all in jeopardy are none other than interlopers to serve some interest which is not legally available to them or sometimes wrongly claiming to champion the cause of the public at large.The Supreme Court in the above judgment has also pointed out the grey area where a person for certain causes can be a person aggrieved eventhough none of his personal interests or rights are involved; but then for them ithas been clarified in several judgments, it is necessary to establish that there is some interest of theirs in common with the public in issue in the proceeding. Learned Single Judge has riot been unaware of this principle, but it seems his attention was not drawn to the law on the subject directly. A business rival is not permitted to object to the grant of permit to another person who wants to run a stage carriage under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

(2.) There has, it seems, however, been some confusion as respects the stand of the writ petitioner-respondents 1&2 that they were old operators running a stage carriage under a permit on a route which fell under the approved scheme and thus since the route fell/falls in the approved scheme of nationalisation of the routes, grant of permit to the appellant herein is a violation of the prohibition under Section 104 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. Routes nationalised are for mofussil services and not town services. It appears however, that the mofussil service for which the old stage carriage operators such as the writ petitioner-respondents 1& 2 are permitted, overlaps a portion of the town service and since the extent of the route is more than the limitations indicated in the scheme, even a town service falling on such a route shall stand out of prohibition. We have carefully examined the scheme. We are of the opinion that routes for town service and routes for mofussil service should be separately dealt with. A route which is exclusively for town service cannot, for the reason that a mofussil service stage carriage shall traverse it for a longer distance, become a route falling under the nationalisation scheme for town service. It, no doubt, will be a route nationalised for mofussil service but obviously not a route nationalised for town service. In ever changing maps of the towns and cities in our country one cannot live oblivious of the fact that routes are almost tearing a part the cities and towns and the routes for town service are expanding and increasing. The cities and bigger municipal towns are developing ring roads to avoid transport vehicles including stage carriages moving through the thick of the city and town population and mofussil services are meant exclusively for mofussils and not for the cities and towns. Such interest of public should not be confused and a thing done for the benefit of the public at large should not be denied unless it is shown that the Corporation, mat is undertaking under the law, has provided sufficient number of transport services for the computers in the city on the route for which the permit has been granted. In view of the above, apart from the fact that the writ petitioner- respondents do not have locus standi, any stand by the undertaking to deny to the appellant the permit will not be justifiable. It shall however always be open to the competent Government to nationalise me town service.

(3.) With the observations as above, the writ appeal is allowed and the writ petition is dismissed.