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Case Number

Civil Writ Case No. 37 of 1955

Advocates

Ratanlal, for Applicant;
Murlimanohar Vyas, for Non-petitioner No. 3;
L.N Chhangani, Government Advocate

Judges

Kailash Wanchoo

Acts

rule 105 of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicle Rules, 1951. Clause (b) of that rule
sec. 64(b) and (f) of the Motor Vehicles Act.5.
MOTOR VEHICLES ACT

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Smart Summary

Structured Summary of the Opinion (Wanchoo, C.J.)

Factual and Procedural Background

The applicants (Saniks Motors and two others) hold permits for buses running the Jodhpur–Pali–Sojat–Bar–Beawar route. Initially the applicants' buses terminated at Bar but, owing to public convenience, were allowed to proceed to Beawar; the permits were countersigned by Ajmer authorities. Another service between Bilara and Bar was similarly extended to Beawar.

In 1954 operators holding permits from Jodhpur to Beawar and Bilara to Beawar applied to the Regional Transport Authority (RTA), Jodhpur, and obtained an order conditioning the extension so that Jodhpur–Beawar operators would make two daily return trips between Bar and Beawar and Bilara–Bar operators one daily return trip (a 2:1 ratio). Some travellers from Bilara to Beawar were later inconvenienced in January 1955 and learned of the RTA's 15 March 1954 order fixing that ratio. Those travellers filed an appeal with the appellate authority, which passed a stay order.

The present writ application under Article 226 was filed by the permit-holders seeking to prohibit the appellate authority from hearing that appeal on the ground that the appellants before the appellate authority lacked locus standi to appeal. The opposite parties (Mohan Lal and others) oppose the application, asserting a right of appeal under sections 64(b) and 64(f) of the Motor Vehicles Act.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether, under section 64(b) of the Motor Vehicles Act, a person aggrieved by a variation in the conditions of a permit (for the purpose of appeal) is limited to the permit-holder, or whether any member of the public who is inconvenienced by the variation may appeal.
Whether, under section 64(f), a local authority (if a Panchayat is such) may appeal where the local authority did not oppose the grant of the permit but had made representations requesting an extension.
Whether failure to hear a person who made representations under rule 105 of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicle Rules, 1951, would itself create a right of appeal for that person where section 64 does not otherwise permit the appeal.
Whether this Court should issue a writ of prohibition to restrain the appellate authority from hearing the pending appeal given the applicants' claim of lack of locus standi of the appellants before that authority.

Arguments of the Parties

Applicants' (Permit-holders') Arguments

The persons who filed the appeal before the appellate authority (travellers / members of the public) have no locus standi to do so under section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act; hence the appellate authority should be prohibited from hearing the appeal.
The true relief sought is prohibition of the appellate authority from hearing or passing any order on the appeal.

Opposite Parties' (Appellants before appellate authority) Arguments

They assert a right to appeal under section 64(b) and section 64(f) of the Motor Vehicles Act.
They urged a broad interpretation of section 64(b): any person aggrieved by a variation in the conditions of a permit (including members of the public inconvenienced by a change in frequency or routing) is entitled to appeal, not only the permit-holder.
They pointed to representations before the RTA (and rule 105 of the Rajasthan Rules) and contended they were affected by the variation and hence entitled to remedies.

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
Mal Chand v. State Transport Authority (Civil Writ Case No. 260 of 1954)	Authority for the proposition that clause (b) of s. 64 does not give all and sundry a right of appeal merely because of some variation in the conditions of a permit.	The Court relied on this prior view (from a Bench including one of the present Judges) to support the narrower interpretation of s. 64(b) that only the permit-holder can be "a person aggrieved" for purposes of appeal.
A. Vedachala Mudaliar v. State of Madras	One judge (Subba Rao, J.) had taken the view that clause (b) authorised any person affected by the variation in permit conditions to appeal.	The Court respectfully differed from the view taken by Subba Rao, J., and rejected the wider interpretation of clause (b) as adopted in that judgment.
M. Kali Mudaliar v. A. Vedachala Mudaliar, AIR 1952 Mad. 545	The higher Bench in that appeal expressed considerable doubt about the correctness of the broad interpretation (that any affected person may appeal under s. 64(b)).	The Court noted those doubts and relied on them to support its conclusion that clause (b) should be confined to permit-holders; the earlier appeal did not decide the point as it was decided on another ground.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The Court examined the statutory language of section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act and the practical consequences of competing interpretations.

1. Interpretation of section 64(b):

The Court held that appeals are creatures of statute and an appellant must fall within the statutory categories. Section 64(b) gives the right of appeal to "any person aggrieved by the revocation or suspension of the permit or by any variation of the conditions thereof."
The Court rejected the opposite parties' wide interpretation (that any member of the public aggrieved by a variation in conditions may appeal). It reasoned that for revocation or suspension the aggrieved person is plainly the permit-holder and it would be implausible for the legislature to intend that an indeterminate and large body of members of the public could appeal whenever they purportedly feel aggrieved.
The Court observed that clause (a) of s. 64 uses the phrase "granted to him" but considered those words superfluous; their presence in clause (a) did not imply that clause (b) should be read more widely. On that basis the Court concluded that "person" in clause (b) denotes the person to whom the permit relates (i.e., the permit-holder).
The Court referred to its earlier decision in Mal Chand (which supported a narrower reading) and expressly disagreed with Subba Rao, J.'s view in A. Vedachala Mudaliar that clause (b) authorises any affected person to appeal.

2. Interpretation of section 64(f):

Clause (f) permits a local authority to appeal against the grant of a permit or any condition attached thereto if the local authority had opposed the grant.
The Court declined to decide the general question whether a Panchayat is a "local authority" for the purpose of clause (f), electing instead to assume arguendo that a Panchayat could be such an authority.
Even on that assumption, the Court found no evidence that the Panchayat had opposed the grant of the permits at any stage; the Panchayat's conduct (asking for extension of permits from Bar to Beawar) did not amount to opposition to grant. Since the statutory condition of prior opposition was not satisfied, clause (f) did not furnish a right of appeal to the Panchayat or its members in this case.

3. Role of rule 105 of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicle Rules, 1951:

The Court noted rule 105(b) (which provides for hearing a person who made representations regarding grant of a permit if the RTA later varies conditions) and acknowledged an argument that the Panchayat may not have been heard before the RTA's 15 March 1954 order.
The Court expressly declined to decide whether rule 105 entitled the Panchayat to be heard. It held, however, that even if the Panchayat was entitled to a hearing and was not heard, that fact alone would not create a right of appeal for a person who is not within the statutory categories of s. 64.
The Court explained that irregularity in the RTA's procedure might give rise to a right of appeal only to those persons who are statutorily entitled to appeal; it would not render the order void nor confer appeal rights on persons outside the scope of s. 64.

4. Writ of prohibition:

The Court noted that, ordinarily, where an appellate authority decides an appeal, the appropriate remedy to challenge its order would be a writ of certiorari under Article 226. Here the matter came before the Court while the appeal was still pending.
Given that the applicants' grievance could only otherwise be addressed after the appellate authority had acted (by certiorari), the Court exercised its discretion to issue a writ of prohibition at the interlocutory stage to prevent the appellate authority from hearing an appeal that, in law, could not have been validly instituted by the present appellants.
The Court observed that the practical effect of prohibition would be that any orders passed by the appellate authority in connection with the impugned appeal would be of no force and effect.

Holding and Implications

Holding (core ruling): The application is allowed and the appellate authority is prohibited from hearing the appeal; it is restrained from taking any steps whatsoever in that connection.

Implications and consequences:

Direct effect: The Court's prohibition prevents the appellate authority from proceeding with the appeal filed by Mohan Lal and others; any orders subsequently passed by that authority in relation to this appeal would be of no force and effect.
On statutory interpretation: The Court adopts a narrow interpretation of section 64(b), holding that "person aggrieved" in that clause refers to the permit-holder whose permit is revoked, suspended or whose conditions are varied; it rejects a broad public-right-to-appeal theory for clause (b).
On clause (f): Even assuming a Panchayat qualifies as a "local authority" for s. 64(f), that clause permits appeal only where the local authority had opposed the grant of the permit — a condition not satisfied here.
On procedural irregularities: Failure to hear a person under rule 105 (if it occurred) does not by itself create a right of appeal for someone outside the categories in section 64, nor does such irregularity render the order automatically void.
Costs: The Court made no order as to costs, given the opposite parties' grievance that they were not heard by the Regional Authority before the 15 March 1954 order.
Precedential effect: The decision clarifies the Court's view of the proper scope of s. 64(b) and (f) in this factual context; the opinion does not purport to decide ancillary questions such as whether a Panchayat is a "local authority" under s. 64(f).

This summary is prepared exclusively from the content of the provided opinion and does not add information beyond the text.

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Sainiks Motors v. The State Transport Authority

Wanchoo, C.J:— This is an application by Saniks Motors and two others under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India and arises in the following circumstances:—

2. The applicants are permits holders of certain buses plying on the Jodhpur, Pali, Sojat, Bar, Beawar route. It appears that there was some inconvenience to the public and the buses of the applicants, which originally terminated at Bar, were allowed to go up to Beawar. It also appears that the permits were countersigned by the Ajmer authorities. There was also another bus service between Bilara and Bar and that was similarly extended for the same reason to Beawar and the permits in that case also were countersigned by the Ajmer authorities. In 1954, however, there was an application by these operators holding permits from Jodhpur to Beawar and Bilara to Beawar to the Regional Transport Authority, Jodhpur, by which they obtained an order that the extension granted up to Beawar would be subject to the condition that the Jodhpur-Beawar operators will make two daily return trips between Bar and Beawar and Bilara-Bar operators will make one daily return trip between Bar and Beawar. It seems that this caused inconvenience to certain persons who were travelling from Bilara to Beawar in January, 1955. These persons then tried to find out from the office of the Regional Transport authority, Jodhpur, why all the buses from Bilara to Beawar did not go the whole way. They then came to know of the order of 15th of March 1954, fixing the ratio of 2-1. Thereupon they filed an appeal before the appellate authority against this order and the Appellate authority passed what it calls a stay order in this connection.

3. The present application is to the effect that the persons, who have filed the appeal before the appellate authority, have no locus standi to do so and, therefore, this Court should prohibit the appellate authority from hearing the appeal and from passing any order in that connection. The reliefs claimed in the writ application are not appropriate but the real relief which the applicants desire is that we should prohibit the appellate authority from hearing this appeal and passing any order whatsoever on it.

4. The application is opposed by Mohan Lal and others who have filed the appeal before the appellate authority and their case is that they have right to appeal under sec. 64(b) and (f) of the Motor Vehicles Act.

5. Appeals are creations of statute and unless a person can bring himself within the four corners of the statute law prescribing appeals, he cannot go before any appellate authority. In the Motor Vehicles Act, sec. 64 provides for appeals and we are concerned in this case firstly with clause (b) of that section which gives right of appeal to—

“64(b). Any person aggrieved by the revocation or suspension of the permit or by any variation of the conditions thereof.”

6. The argument on behalf of the applicants is that under this clause only a person, whose permit has been revoked or suspended or the conditions of whose permit have been in any way varied, can be an aggrieved person who has the right to appeal. On the other hand, learned counsel for the opposite party contends that any person, who feels himself aggrieved by any variation in the conditions of a permit, be he a permit, holder or any member of the public, is entitled to appeal. It is urged that if for example, by a change in the condition of a permit, the number of daily services is reduced from two per day between Jodhpur Beawar to one per day, any member of the public, who is inconvenienced by such a change, has a right to appeal against the change to the appellate authority. We are of opinion that sec. 64(b) is not capable of this wide interpretation. It does not require any argument to come to the conclusion that so far as revocation or suspension of a permits is concerned, the person aggrieved is the person whose permit has been revoked or suspended and it is he alone who can appeal. It will be going too far to say that even in the case of revocation or suspension of a permit, any member of the public, who feels aggrieved by the disappearance of the service has any right to appeal. It could hardly have been the intention of the legislature to give such a wide right of appeal to an indeterminate and large body of persons. Nor could it have been intended that those indeterminate body of persons, who may feel aggrieved at different times, would be entitled to appeal within 30 days from the time they came to know of the revocation and began to feel the grievance. If, therefore, a person aggrieved by revocation or suspension of the permit is the person who holds the permit and whose permit has been revoked or suspended it follows, in our opinion, that the person aggrieved by any variation in the conditions of a permit is also the person who holds the permit and not anybody else. Our attention was drawn in this connection to clause (a) of sec. 64 where the words used are “any person aggrieved by any condition attached to a permit granted to him.” It is urged that if clause (b) was similarly confined to the persons to whom permit was granted, we should have found similar expression used in clause (b) also. It is enough, however, to say that the words “granted to him” appearing in clause (a) are, in our opinion superfluous and clause (a) would have meant the same thing even if these words were not there. The presence of these words in clause (a) does not, in our opinion, mean that clause (b) has a much wider application than clause (a). We are clearly, therefore, of the opinion that clause (b) only authorises a person, whose permit has been revoked or suspended or the conditions of whose permit have been varied, to appeal and it does not authorise others to appeal, for, others cannot be said to be aggrieved by the revocation or suspension of the permit or variation in its conditions. In an earlier case also (Mal Chand v. State Transport Authority. Civil Writ Case No. 260 of 1954) decided by a Bench of this Court to which one of us was a party, the view was expressed that clause (b) does not give any right to all and sundry to come in appeal because of some variation in the condition of the permit. Our attention was drawn in this connection to A. Vedachala Mudaliar v. State Of Madras(1) in which Subba Rao, J. took the view that clause (b) authorised any person who was affected by the variation in the conditions of the permit, to appeal. The learned Judge was himself very hesitant about the view he was taking and we must respectfully differ from him. We find that in the same Court when that case went in appeal, the Bench expressed considerable doubt as to the correctness of this view. (See M. Kali Mudaliar v. A. Vedachala Mudaliar, AIR 1952 Mad. 545). They did not however, pursue the matter because the appeal was decided on another point. We have, however, no doubt that the “person” within the meaning of clause (b) is only the person whose permit is revoked or suspended or conditions of whose permit have been varied. The opposite party, therefore, could not file an appeal before the appellate authority under clause (b) as aggrieved persons,

7. The other clause on which learned counsel for the opposite parties rely, is clause (f). That gives right to a local authority to appeal against the grant of a permit or any condition attached thereto if such local authority has opposed the grant of the permit. The first question in this case is whether the applicants are a local authority. It is urged that two of them are members of the Panchayat and that there was a resolution by the Panchayat in this connection. Whether a Panchayat is a local authority or not is a matter which we do not think it necessary to decide in this case. We shall assume for present purposes that Panchayat may be local authority envisaged in clause (f). The question still remains whether the conditions of clause (f) have been fulfilled in this case. Those conditions are very restricted. In the first place, it is to be shown that the local authority had opposed the grant of a permit. If that is shown, then they can appeal against the grant of the permit or any condition attached to such grant. In this case, there is no proof before us that the Panchayat had opposed the grant of the permits at any stage. If anything, all that the Panchayat can be said to have done was to ask for the extension of the permit from beyond Bar to Beawar. In these circumstances, the Panchayat not having opposed the grant of the permit cannot appeal under clause (f) of sec. 64, for, the conditions for appealing under that clause are not fulfilled.

8. These were the only two clauses under which the opposite parties claimed that an appeal could lie to the appellate authority. We have seen that their contention on both counts is incorrect. Therefore, the opposite parties had no right to appeal to the appellate authority and therefore, that authority cannot hear the appeal. Our attention was drawn in this connection to rule 105 of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicle Rules, 1951. Clause (b) of that rule certainly provides that a person who had made any representation with the grant of a permit should be hear later by the Regional Transport Authority, if it subsequently wants to vary any condition of the permit. It is urged that the Panchayat, on whose representation the permits were extended from Bar to Beawar, was not heard when that extension was restricted to a certain extent by the order of 15th of March 1954. We express no opinion as to whether the Panchayat was entitled to hearing under rule 105. But assuming that it was and was not heard, even that would not give a right to appeal unless the case is specifically covered by the terms of sec. 64. Further, even if the Regional Transport Authority makes an irregularity in making a change in the conditions of a permit, that would not, in our opinion, affect the order passed by the authority. That may give rise to a right of appeal to a person who can appeal under the terms of sec. 64. It would not make the order itself void, nor would it gave rise to an appeal by a person who is not authorised to appeal by any of the clauses of sec. 64.

9. The next question is whether in these circumstances, we should issue a writ of prohibition. This is a case where the applicant could only have to come to us under Art. 226 of the Constitution after the appellate authority had decided the appeal, in a writ of certiorate. In these circumstances, as the order of the appellate authority could only be brought to this Court in a writ of certiorari and in no other manner, we think that we should exercise our power and issue a writ of prohibition now the manner has been brought before us while the appeal is still pending before the appellate authority. The effect of the order of prohibition would naturally be that all orders passed by the appellate authority in connection with the appeal will be of no force and effect.

10. We, therefore, allow the application and prohibit the appellate authority from hearing the appeal and taking any steps whatsover in that connection. In view of the fact that the opposite parties' grievance is that they were not heard by the Regional Authority, Jodhpur before order of 15th of March, 1954, was passed, we make no order as to costs.

Sainiks Motors v. The State Transport Authority

Structured Summary of the Opinion (Wanchoo, C.J.)

Factual and Procedural Background

Legal Issues Presented

Arguments of the Parties

Applicants' (Permit-holders') Arguments

Opposite Parties' (Appellants before appellate authority) Arguments

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

Holding and Implications

Sainiks Motors v. The State Transport Authority

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