Maa Kali Motors and Others vs State of West Bengal and Others

Surya Kumar Tiwari, J.—This appeal arises out of an order passed in Matter No. 2141 of 1993 by one of the Single Judges of this High Court (Hon''ble Kalyanmoy Ganguli, J.) on 19.8.1993. The petitioner applied for grant of temporary permit on March 31,1988. The application was rejected by RTA. The petitioners continued to approach this Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution. As per orders passed from time to time in writ application by this Court, the appellant continued to ply his Bus on the said route on the basis of temporary permits.

This court ultimately directed that the RTA should consider the grant of regular permit. The RTA held that at present the route is very much congested and there is no terminal facility available at Calcutta and finally rejected the prayer. This order was challenged before the ld. single Judge of this court. The ld. Judge held that the refusal to issue fresh permit was passed on valid and cogent reasons and hence the writ petition was dismissed.

The ld. Counsel for the appellant has laid much stress on the decision of the Supreme Court Mithilesh Garg, Vs. Union of India and others etc. etc., He has also cited two judgments of this court one reported in 1993(2) CLJ 229 (Gaurang v. State of West Bengal & Ors) and one unreported judgment delivered on 5th July, 1994 in Matter No. 1658 of 1993 (Shyamal Kumar Ghosh v. State of West Bengal & Ors). In these two judgments it has been laid down that congestion in the traffic is no ground for refusal to grant permit under the new Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. During the course of arguments the Calcutta Gazette Extra Ordinary, dated 15.9.88, has been filed, wherein a notification has been published which lays down that the Calcutta-Howrah-Digha route has been declared as Nationalised Route and has been exclusively reserved for State Transport Undertaking.

Section 104 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 lays down as under :

Restriction on grant of permits in respect of a notified area or notified route - "where a scheme has been published under Sub-section (3) of Section 100 in respect of any notified area or notified route, the State Transport Authority, as the case may be, shall not grant any permit except in accordance with the provisions of the Scheme :

Provide that where no application for a permit has been made by the State Transport undertaking in respect of any notified area or notified route in pursuance of an approved scheme, the State Transport Authority or the Regional Transport Authority, as the case may be, may grant temporary permits to any person in respect of such notified area or notified route subject to the condition that such permit shall cease to be effective on the issue of a permit to the State Transport undertaking in respect of that area or route."

Since most of the route is covered by the Nationalised Route, the RTA was within its jurisdiction to refuse to grant permits even though this fact has not been spelled out in its order.

We, therefore, dismiss this appeal. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed. The parties to bear their own costs.

P.K. Majumdar, J.

I agree.