Gupta, J. - (1.) On the application of the appellant, the Regional Transport Authority, Mandya, granted him a contract carriage permit on February 8, 1972, valid for the entire State of Karnataka. The grant was cancelled by the Karnataka State Transport Appellate Tribunal by its order dated August 19, 1972 on appeal preferred by the third respondent, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation. The appellant filed a writ petition in the High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore challenging the order of the Appellate Tribunal. The High Court dismissed the petition by its order dated November 29, 1974 agreeing with the Appellate Tribunal that the Regional Transport Authority, Mandya, had no jurisdiction to grant permits valid throughout the State of Karnataka in view of the first proviso to sub-section (1) of Sec. 45 of the Motor Vehicles Act. 1939 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) The correctness of that decision is questioned by the appellant in this appeal by special leave.
(2.) Section 45 (1) with its first proviso which is the only part of the section relevant for the present purpose is in these terms: "45. General provision as to applications for permits.- (1) Every application for a permit shall be made to the Regional Transport Authority of the region in which it is proposed to use the vehicle or vehicles: Provided that if it is proposed to use the vehicle or vehicles in two or more regions lying within the same State, the application shall be made to the Regional Transport Authority of the region in which the major portion of the proposed route or area lies, and in case the portion of the proposed route or area in each of the regions is approximately equal, to the Regional Transport Authority of the region in which it is proposed to keep the vehicle or vehicles:" As its marginal note indicates, S. 45 contains a general provision regulating applications for permits. The proviso, quoted above, lays down that where the applicant for a permit proposes to use his vehicle in two or more regions in the same State, the application must be made to the Regional Transport Authority within whose jurisdiction the major portion of the proposed route or area lies. The appellant had asked for a contract carriage permit that would be valid throughout the State of Karnataka which meant that he proposed to use his vehicle in all the different regions lying in the State. The second proviso to Section 44 (1) of the Act lays down that the area specified as the region of a Regional Transport Authority shall not be less than an entire district, or the whole area of a Presidency town. In the State of Karnataka there are 19 Regional Transport Authorities, one for each district in the State. In terms of the first proviso, to Sec. 45 (1), an application for an inter-regional permit that the appellant was asking for had to be made to the Regional Transport Authority of the region that included the major portion of the proposed area. The question debated before the appellate tribunal and the High Court was whether the area lying within the jurisdiction of the Regional Transport Authority, Mandya, was larger than the area within the region of any other Regional Transport Authority in the State, and in that context the meaning of the term 'area' in the first proviso to Section 45 (1) arose for consideration. According to the applicant for the permit, 'area' in Section 45 meant the extent of motorable tract in the region, and the Regional Transport Authority, Mandya, agreeing with this interpretation of the word 'area' found that the "Mandya Region has more motorable roads than any other district in the State." The appellate tribunal and the High Court both refused to accept this meaning of 'area' which they held to mean plain geographical area, and as the Regional Transport Authority, Mandya, was admittedly not the largest district in that State, the High Court dismissed the writ petition, and affirmed the decision of the appellate tribunal that the grant of permit was without jurisdiction.
(3.) Before proceeding to consider the merits of the rival contentions as to the meaning of the word 'area' in the first proviso to Section 45 (1), it would be helpful to refer to certain other provisions of the Act which seem to be relevant in this context. The appellant had asked for a contract carriage permit. Section 2 (3) defines a contract carriage as a 'motor vehicle' which carries passengers for hire or reward under a contract for the use of the vehicle as a whole either on a time basis or from one point to another, and in both cases without stopping to pick up or set down along the line of route passengers not included in the contract. A motor vehicle is defined in Section 2 (18) as a mechanically propelled vehicle "adapted for use upon roads." Section 49 lays down the particulars that an application for a contract carriage permit shall contain, and the 'area' for which the permit is required is one of the matters that the application must state. The word route which has been used in association with 'area' in Sec. 45 (1) is defined by Section 2 (28A) as "a line of travel which specifies the highway which may be traversed by a motor vehicle between one terminus and another." Section 2 (1) defines 'area' as follows: " 'area', in relation to any provision of this Act, means such area as the State Government may, having regard to the requirements of that provision, specify by notification in the Official Gazette;";