VIJAI SINGH Vs. REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY JAIPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) THE case of the five petitioners, M/s. Vijai Singh,roormal, Nizam-uddin, M/s Jagdish Narain Om Prakash, and Hanuman Bux Pareek, leaving aside irrelevant matters, is that they along with 17 others held permits for the Jaipur - Alwar route, which were due to expire on 30th September, 1956. THEy applied for their renewal on or about the 11th July, 1956. THE grievance of the petitioners is that instead or renewing the permits their applications for renewal were advertised in the Rajasthan Gazette of 30th August, 1956, and objections were invited. THEir further grievance is that the Regional Transport Authority in its meeting, which took place on the 29th of September, 1st of October, and 5th of October, 1956, recorded a resolution that the traffic needs on this route had increased, and there should be 9 trips from each side between Jaipur and Med. It was recorded that this required 20 buses to run daily on this route, and provision had to be made for weekly holidays to the staff, for leave to the staff, for break downs, for extra traffic on account of fairs and marriages, for reserve parties etc. , and, therefore, in all 30 buses should be given permits on this route in order to provide ten services daily. Of the previous bus owners, permits of 13, which included the 5 petitioners, were renewed for a period of three years. THE permit of 3 were temporarily renewed pending certain enquiry against the allegations of illegal transfer of permits, and the renewal of one permit was disallowed as the permit-holder had allowed somebody else to use the permit.

(3.) IT was next contended that no provision need have been kept for increased traffic on account of fairs, marriages or reserve parties, for sec. 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act permitted grant of temporary permits. Sec. 62 is an enabling provision authorising the R. T. A, to grant temporary permits without following the elaborate procedure laid down in sec. 67, bus that does not enable the R. T. A. to produce a bus or stage carriage when it may be required for this extra traffic. The R. T. A. could not remain content with the hope that some bus owner would immediately turn up and ask for a temporary permit when there was extra need for traffic on account of marriages or reserve parties or other occasions. Taking into consideration that marriage parties are a common phenomenon and that reserve parties also require bus service now and then, and that the fairs also do come up, these needs of extra traffic have to be taken into consideration in order to fix the number of stage carriages to be run on any particular line. But these buses by themselves are sometimes insufficient on occasions of fairs and it is then that if somebody wants a temporary permit the R. T. A. has authority to giant it. In our opinion good reasons have been given by the R. T. A. to fix the number of buses on this route at 30.