B BHEEMESWAR RAO Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of the Court under Art, 226 of the Constitution of India, is directed against the order of the Government contained in G. o. Ms. No. 445 dated 23/02/1965 passed in exercise of its revisional jurisdiction under Section 64-A of the Motor vehicles Act.

(2.) The petitioner herein is the respondent No. 2 and one of the unsuccessful applicants before the Regional Transport Authority, Visakhapatnam, which by its order dated 23-12-1961 granted a stage carriage permit on route Koada to Visakahpatnam, to respondent NO. 2 herein. The petitioner preferred an appeal before the appellate authority which, by its order dated 16-7-1964, allowed the appeal and granted permit in his favour. On a revision petition filed by the 2nd respondent herein, the government, by its order now impugned in this writ petition, restored the order of the Regional Transport Authority.

(3.) In this petition, the only point that is argued by Mr. Sikhamani, the learned counsel for the petitioner, is that the application for the grant of a stage carriage permit filed by the 2nd respondent herein was not maintainable as he was a minor on that date and was not represented by his next fried, and for the same reason, he contends that the revision petition filed by him was also not maintainable. It is not denied by the 2nd respondent that he was a minor both on the date of the application for stage carriage permit as well as on the date when he filed the revision petition before the Government. he was declared a major during the pendency of this writ petition. However the question is. Does the Motor Vehicles Act require an application for the grant of a stage carriage permit to be filed only be a major or by a minor only through a next friend? I do not find any such provision in that Act. On the contrary, the Act contemplates that a permit could be granted in favour of the minor and in such an event, the name of the guardian or next friend of the minor shall be entered in the permit. Mr. Sikhamani, the learned counsel for the petitioner, however, contends that in view of Order 32 of the Civil P. C., no proceeding can be taken by or against a minor except through a next friend or a guardian, and in view of the said provision, the application for the grant of a permit admittedly filed by the minor without a next friend must be held to the not maintainable. I am unable to agree with this contention. the Motor vehicles Act does not made the provisions of the Civil P. C. applicable to the proceedings that are taken under the said Act. It is only because the Civil P. C. provides that no proceedings shall be taken by or against a minor except through a next friend or guardian that a proceeding by a minor to which the Civil P. C. applies has to be through a next friend, But for that provision, the minor would not have been precluded form taking any proceeding in his own name. The Motor vehicles Act is a special and self-contained Act to which the provisions of Civil P. c. are not made applicable. that being so an application filed by a minor without a next friend under the Motor Vehicles Act for the grant of a stage carriage permit cannot be held to be incompetent. Fro the same reason the revision partition also filed by the minor cannot be held to be untenable. I, therefore, hold that the petition as well as the revision petition were property entertained and disposed of by the authorities concerned.