BURDWAN BUS SERVICE Vs. REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY BURDWAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Rule was obtained against grant of a temporary stage carriage permit in Favour of respondent No. 2, valid upto August 31, 1965. With the passage of time, validity of the permit has expired and this Rule has become infructuous. Still then I need make certain observation so that the law on the point, agitated before me, may be clarified.

(2.) The petitioner firm and three others have permanent stage carriage permits to ply buses in the route Burdwan to Monteswar via Memari. The respondent No. 2, Choudhury Samanta Transport Company, has permit to ply a bus on Burdwan-Memari-Satgachia and Madhyamgram route, part of the latter route coinciding with the route on which the petitioner firm and others run their buses. According to the petitioner, the need for communication between Burdwan and Memari and Memari and Madhyamgram is well provided for partly by bus & partly by electric train service. Even, then the petitioner complains, the respondent No. 2 was permitted to ply an additional bus between Burdwan and Malam ba via Bhandardihi (a new route) on temporary basis. Passengers, according to the petitioner firm, earlier used to travel by the Burdwan--Monteswar via Memari route in order to reach Burdwan. They or most of them now travel by the new route which costs less and takes less time in transit. This has affected the number of passengers travelling by the route on which the petitioner runs bus service and has made service economically unremunerative.

(3.) The petitioner takes up the stand that the grant of the temporary permit to the respondent No. 2 was illegal and unjustified. In support of this stand the petitioner relies upon the following facts. On April 5, 1955, the respondent No. 2 made an application for grant of a temporary permit to ply a bus on a new route from Burdwan to Malamba for the purpose of carrying passengers. On that application, the respondent Secretary of the Regional Transport Authority directed issue of a temporary permit, valid for four months, by his order dated May 3, 1965. Before, however, the permit was granted, the Regional Transport Authority had decided, on April 20, 1965, to invite applications for permanent stage carriage permit in this route and also in another route and pursuant to that decision there was an advertisement published, on April 28, 1965, in a local newspaper, known as 'Bardhaman' inviting applications for one permanent stage carriage permit in each of the two roads, known as Burdwan to Malamba via Memari and Madhyamgram and Burdwan to Madhyamgram via Malamba. According to the petitioner a temporary permit should not have been granted without grant of a permanent permit, which was in contemplation, all the more in the absence of the need specified in Clauses (a) to (d) of Section 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act and solely at the personal discretion of the respondent Secretary of the Regional Transport Authority.