LUCKY BHARAT GARAGE PRIVATE Vs. REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India the petitioner challenges the validity of Rule 55 of the Central Provinces and Berar motor Vehicles Rules, 1940 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules), imposing a fee in respect of the grant and renewal of a permit, and prays for the issuance of a writ of certiorari for quashing a demand made on him by the Secretary, Regional equivalent Citation: transport Authority, Raipur, by letter dated 6th January 1964 asking him to pay a permit fee of Rs. 50/- for each of the six regions where he has been permitted to ply his trucks under permits.

(2.) THE applicant had obtained extension of the permits held by him for the plying of trucks in the entire State of Madhya Pradesh. When he applied for a renewal of the permits, the Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, informed him that he was required to pay a permit fee of Rs. 50/-for renewal of the permit for each region and that ho had also to pay Rs. 120/-as permit fee for the six regions for which his permits were extended originally.

(3.) SHRI Dharmadhikari, learned counsel for the petitioner, argued that Rule 55 imposing fees in respect of the grant and renewal of a permit was saved when section 68 (2) (g) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, gave to the State Government the power to make a rule with respect to "the fees to be paid in respect of permits, duplicate permits, plates and badges "that for this clause a new Clause (g) was substituted by Section 61 of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 1950 (Act 100 of 1956) in the following terms: "the fees to be paid in respect of applications for permits, duplicate permits and plates;" that after this amendment fees could be prescribed by a rule in respect of applications for permits but not for permits themselves; and that, therefore, Rule 55 became ultra vires after the amendment of Section 68 (2) (g) in so far as it prescribed fees in respect of the grant and renewal of a permit. Learned counsel also submitted in the alternative that in any case as Clause (d) of the amended rule 55 laid down that there shall be no fee for the countersignature of a permit, the applicant could not be called upon to pay a permit fee for all the six regions for which a renewal of extension of permits was sought and that be could be asked to pay a permit fee only for one region, namely, the Raipur region.