Satish Kumar Mittal, J. - (1.) THE petitioner has filed this petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India for quashing the order dated 24.3.2006 passed by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Punjab, Chandigarh (hereinafter referred to as the STAT), whereby while dismissing the appeals filed by respondents No. 4 to 6, it has been ordered that the permits for the route in question granted in favour of the petitioner shall be temporary and shall cease to be effective once permits are issued on the route in question in favour of the State Transport Undertakings. It has been further prayed that a direction be issued to the official respondents to treat the permit of the petitioner for the route in question to be regular for all intents and purposes.
(2.) IN this case, undisputedly, the applications were invited for grant of three stage carriage permits to operate three return trips on the route in question vide notice dated 22.12.2002 published in the Motor Transport Gazette, Weekly, Chandigarh. In response to the said notice, 52 applicants, including the petitioner, applied for the grant of said carriage permits. The Regional Transport Authority decided to allow two permits to the existing operators and one permit to the new entrants. Further, as per the transport Scheme dated 9.8.1990 which was further modified on 21.10.1997, two stage carriage permits were to be allotted to the State Transport Undertaking because the entire portion of the route in question except the portion from Talwara to Mukerian falls on the National Highway. It has been alleged that since no State Transport Undertaking had applied for the grant of the permits in question, the Regional Transport Authority decided to allot all the three permits in question in favour of deserving private applicants on regular basis because the applications were invited for the grant of permits on regular basis. The petitioner being an existing company appeared before the said authority on 17.12.2003 and staked its claim for the grant of permit. It has been further alleged that respondents No. 4 to 6, who also participated in the selection process, never objected to the grant of permits to the private operators. It has been further alleged that while assessing the inter -se merits of all the applicants, Regional Transport Authority, Jalandhar vide its order dated 2.1.2004 granted two of the three permits in favour of the existing private operators, including the petitioner, who falls in the category of existing operators, and one permit in favour of the new applicants, for a period of five years.
(3.) FEELING aggrieved against the aforesaid order, Tiwana Motors Regd., Dittupur, who also claims the permit in question in the category of existing operators, filed an appeal before the STAT. The Tribunal while exercising the revisional power under Section 90 of the Motor Vehicles Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'), partly set aside the order of the regional Transport Authority for granting of two permits on regular basis which were meant for the State Transport Undertakings while making the following observations: The last point for consideration is whether the permits in question could be granted on regular basis. In this regard, reference to Section 104 of the Act is necessary. This Section says that where a Scheme has been published under Sub -section (3) of Section 100 of the Act in respect of any notified area or notified route, the State Transport Authority (STA) or the RTA shall not grant any permit except in accordance with the provisions of the Scheme. Proviso to this Section lays down that where no application for a permit has been made by the STUs in respect of any notified area or notified route, in pursuance of an approved Scheme, the STA or the RTA may grant temporary permits to any person in respect of such area/route subject to the condition that such permit shall cease to be effective on the issue of a permit to the STUs in respect of that area/route. Since in the present case, no STU applied for the grant of permits in question, therefore, two of the permits of the share of the STUs could be granted only temporarily and not on regular basis. Since two of the permits have been granted to existing operators namely, respondent Nos. 3 and 5, it would be in the public interest that their permits should be held to have been granted temporarily under Section 104 of the Act. This part of the order is being made by treating appeal No. 204/2004 as a revision petition, because on the face of it, the impugned order granting two permits of the share of STUs on regular basis is illegal.;