BADRI SINGH Vs. NORTH BIHAR REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these twelve cases have been heard together as identical questions of law and facts are involved in them. They are, therefore being disposed of by a common judgment.

(2.) The petitioners in these cases applied for renewal of their stage carriage permits for different routes. Following the procedure for grant of permits, the renewal applications were published in the Bihar Gazette on the 19th June, 1968. Objections were invited. The Bihar State Road Transport Corporation, hereinafter called the Corporation, filed objections on the ground that there were proposed schemes, which were about to be approved, and the schemes, when approved will cover entirely in some cases and partially in others. the routes for which the renewal of the permits had been applied. It appears from the order of the Regional Transport Authority, North Bihar, which was the first authority in all these cases, that for sometime temporary permits were given to the petitioners awaiting the final approval and publication of the approved schemes in the official Gazette, as required under Sub-section (3) of Section 68D of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, hereinafter called 'the Act'. But finally, due to one reason or the other, when the publication in the Official Gazette of the schemes was not available to the Regional Transport Authority, it thought It proper to renew the permits applied to be renewed by the petitioners, and by its resolution dated 18-12-1968, a copy of which is Annexure '1' in all the applications, it granted the renewal. The Corporation went up in appeal. By the time the appeals were heard by the Appeal Board, the scheme seems to have been approved and published in the Official Gazette. The Appeal Board has taken into consideration the schemes so published while passing its order dated the 29th September, 1969, a copy of which is Annexure '3' in all the applications, by which the orders of renewal of the petitioners permits have been set aside. The petitioners have come up to this Court for the quashing of the order of the Appeal Board

(3.) It may be mentioned here that some title suits were filed in some Civil Courts in the State of Bihar, wherein orders of injunction were issued from time to time, due to which for a considerable time the schemes, even if they appear to have been approved long ago, could not be published in the Official Gazette under Sub-section (3) of Section 68D of the Act. Hence they could not become final and could not be called the approved schemes. The routes to which they related could not be called notified routes within the meaning of the said provision of law. After the injunction orders were vacated the schemes were published in the Official Gazette on the 28th May. 1969.