STATE OF WEST BENGAL Vs. AVIJHIT GHOSH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Two intra-court appeals from the same order dated August 9, 2017 have come before us and with the consent of the parties they were consolidated and heard analogously. The said order dated August 9, 2017 was passed on WP No.26463 (W) of 2016, at the instance of the writ petitioner/respondent no. 1, whereby the writ petition was allowed to the extent of setting aside the order dated January 22, 2016 passed by the Principal Secretary, Department of Transport, West Bengal, the corrigendum dated March 4, 2016 passed by the same authority, and the consequent notification purportedly under Section 71(3)(a) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 dated June 17, 2016 published in Part I of the Kolkata Gazette Extraordinary on June 30, 2016. The State of West Bengal which was the principal respondent therein, alongwith the Regional Transport Authority and its Secretary, preferred MAT No.1620 of 2017 therefrom, whereas respondents No.4, 5, 6 and 8 in the writ petition, preferred MAT No.1443 of 2017.

(2.) The writ petition was allowed by the impugned order basically because His Lordship was pleased to hold that while some existing operators were given a hearing without the official respondents (appellant State herein) being under any obligation to do so, the other existing operators were not heard, before the fleet strength was increased. There are other observations relating to the inherently contradictory stands taken by the State as a respondent in the writ petition, and the conduct of the private respondents who pretended in an earlier public interest litigation to be members of the commuting public to seek consideration of their representation for increase of fleet strength in two given routes, whereas they or their relatives were actually existing operators, and who turned around and applied for additional permits for stage carriage vehicles after the fleet strength was increased, which subterfuge was deprecated by the Division Bench hearing a recalling application by the self-same writ petitioner/respondent no. 1, as a matter of displeasure that the public interest litigants had not disclosed their identity as permit holders while applying as commuters in respect of the said route even while dismissing the recalling application.

(3.) However, at the time of oral hearing of the appeals no submissions were advanced by the two sets of appellants against the said finding of His Lordship on the basis of which the writ petition had been allowed; instead, while the Appellants in MAT 1620 of 2017 argued on matters which were not on the basis whereof the writ petition was allowed, and took an objection to the said findings of the learned Single Judge in their memorandum of appeal and the written notes of arguments, the appellants in MAT 1443 of 2017 adopted the submissions of the Appellants in MAT 1620 of 2017 and took an additional ground of equity being in their favour.