The Malabar Motor Transport Co-operative Society Ltd. vs Kandath Motors and others

V. Balakrishna Eradi, J.—The challenge in this writ petition is against the appellate decision rendered by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal in an appeal preferred before it by the 1st respondent herein against the Order Ex. P1 passed by the Regional Transport Authority, Palghat selecting the petitioner for the grant of a stage carriage permit for operating a service on the route Olavakkode to Kuthannur in preference to the first respondent. The State Transport Appellate Tribunal by its judgment evidenced by Ex. P2 set aside the order of the Regional Transport Authority and directed that the permit should be granted to the present first respondent on the ground that he is better qualified other than the writ petitioner so far as this particular route is concerned. The petitioner before me is a Co-operative Society. Although there were four applicants for the grant of the permit the Regional Transport Authority eliminated two of them on the ground that applicant No. 2 did not press its claim and that applicant No. 4 did not have full sector qualification. The final contest was therefore between the petitioner who was applicant No. 3 and the first respondent who was applicant No. 1. The Regional Transport Authority has stated in the order Ex. P1 that both these applicants were similarly situated in regard to sector qualification both of them having experience on the full sector and that since the qualifications were equal the permit was granted to the petitioner Society applying the rule of preference contained in the proviso to Section 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act.

The first respondent took up the matter in appeal before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal and he appears to have urged in the appeal memorandum that there had not been a proper consideration by the Regional Transport Authority of the relevant qualifications of himself and the petitioner Society in relation to matters other than experience on the sector and that if such an evaluation has been properly made the appellant would have been found to be in possession of superior qualifications on various counts. It would also appear that in support of this contention taken in the appeal memorandum the first respondent also filed an affidavit before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal.

What the Tribunal has done in Ex. P2 is only to enumerate the various contentions put forward by the appellant before it in support of his claim that he possessed superior qualifications, and after doing this without any further discussion of the evidence relating to these matters the Tribunal has proceeded to state its conclusion that it was a fit case where the order of the Regional Transport Authority should be set aside and the permit directed to be granted to the appellant.

To say the least, there has not been a proper judicial disposal by the Tribunal of the appeal before it after applying its mind to the contentions urged by both parties and determining the merits of those contentions on the basis of the evidence available on the record. Such a perfunctory disposal practically amounts to abdication of its functions as a statutory first appellate authority. The judgment evidenced by Ex. P 2 has therefore to be set aside on this short ground. It is accordingly quashed and that State Transport Appellate Tribunal is directed to restore the appeal to file and to dispose it of afresh in accordance with law after considering afresh all the contentions raised by both sides on the basis of the evidence on record. It is made clear that no opinion is being expressed in this judgment on the merits of those contentions.

In view of the necessity to have the matter disposed of urgently in the interests of the travelling public for whose benefit the service has been introduced, there will be a further direction to the Tribunal to dispose of the appeal within a period not exceeding six weeks from today. Since the decision of the Tribunal is being set aside on the ground that the Tribunal has not written a proper judgment I consider that it is only proper that the public should not be deprived of the benefit of a stage carriage on the route during the interim period between now and the date of the fresh decision to be rendered by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal pursuant to the direction given herein. Hence I direct that the status quo as on to-day will therefore be maintained during the said period in regard to the operation of the Service and the Regional Transport Authority Palghat will take necessary action in that regard. The original petition is disposed of as above. There will be no order as to costs.