- (1.)THIS petition arises out of a Motor Vehicles case and has been referred to a Full bench because of an apparent conflict of views in different Division Benches of this court on the question whether the State Transport Appellate Authority can remand a case to the Regional Transport Authority for a reconsideration of the matter when evidence is already on record and the State Transport Appellate Authority can dispose of the case on merits.
(2.)THE brief facts which have given rise to this writ petition are that the Regional transport Authority, Rewa, advertised for applications for one permit on the panna-Jabalpur route, 35 operators applied before the Regional Transport authority. On the 24th June, 1963 the Regional Transport Authority granted a permit to Surendra Mohan Chaurasiya, who has filed the present petition, and dismissed the other applications. Out of the operators whose applications had been rejected, 12 persons filed appeals before the State Transport Appellate authority, One appeal had been filed by the Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport corporation, which was appeal No. 314 of 1963. This appeal was allowed on the ground that the Regional Transport Authority had no power to reject the application in default, and the case was remanded to the Regional Transport authority. The Regional Transport Authority had rejected the application for a permit made by this Corporation on the ground that no one appeared on behalf of the applicant in spite of notice. The appeals of Pritam Singh, Jan Sewa Transport co-operative Society, Baldeo Prasad Shanker Prasad, and Peer Mohammad Haji zumman were allowed by the State Transport Appellate Authority on the ground that the appeal of the Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation had also been allowed and had been remanded for disposal on merits, The appeals of ramkrishna Dolan Prasad and Jayaram Prasad were dismissed as non-maintainable on technical grounds, while the appeals of Sindh Driver Transport co. , Sarda Narain Transport, B. D. Shukla, and Jabalpur Transport were dismissed as no one appeared to press the appeals.
(3.)FROM the above narration of facts it appears that five appeals were allowed and remanded by the State Transport Appellate Authority without going into the facts of the case. The first contention of learned counsel for the applicant in this Court was that the State Transport Appellate Authority was wrong in remanding these cases, in fact, the Appellate Authority should have itself gone through the evidence and decided the matter finally; and there was no justification for remanding the case when the evidence was on record. It was also contended by learned counsel that the Appellate Authority was wrong in remanding the case of the Madhya pradesh State Road Transport Corporation merely upon the ground that the regional Transport Authority had no right to dismiss the application in default. His contention was that the Regional Transport Authority was right in rejecting the application of the Corporation when no one appeared in support of the application in spite of service of notice.