SARJOO PROSAD, C. J. - (1.) THE petitioner Shyam Singh has moved for an appropriate writ against the Regional Transport authority, Udaipur, restraining the said Authority from considering applications for grant of a permit on the Udaipur - Bhilwara route without duly publishing the petitioner's application dated 6th October, 1958, and also for directing the said respondent to publish the application aforesaid in due course as required by sec. 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (Act No. IV of 1939 - hereinafter called the Act ).
(2.) THE facts may be briefly stated. THE Regional Transport Authority invited applications for five stage carriage permits on the aforesaid rule by a notification published in the Rajasthan Rajpatra dated 7th of November, 1957. THE petitioner along with others also put in an application for a permit on that route on the 21st of November, 1957. Out of the applications received it appears that the Regional Transport Authority published 113 applications, including that of the petitioner, in the Rajpatra dated 27th March, 1958 and thereafter by separate resolutions dated 15/16th May, 1958, permits were granted to some applicants and the application of the petitioner as also of others were dismissed. One Beharilal, Chairman of the Taxi Motor Association, Kankroli, had objected that one of his applications in his own name and two applications in the name of the Taxi Motor Association had not been published; and therefore, the Transport Authority could not validly consider any of the other applications for permits; but this contention was over-ruled. Against that order Behari Lal and the Motor Association, Kankroli, moved for a writ in this court, being writ petition No. 85 of 1958. THE petition was accepted and an appropriate writ was issued. THE direction was that the Transport Authority was bound to publish all the applications before taking into consideration any of them for grant of permit and the resolutions passed by the Regional Transport Authority granting permits, or rejecting applications were, therefore, quashed. THE result was that in the matter of publication of the applications received the Transport Authority had to observe the above mandate and directions of this court. Thereafter, the petitioner filed another application for permit on the same route before the Transport Authority on 6th October, 1958, after complying with the requisite formalities; and the Transport Authority in its turn invited more applications by a notification published in the Rajpatra of 22nd January, 1959. In pursuance of that notification the petitioner again presented an application for permit on 10th February, 1959. It is not disputed that all the above applications were in order. This time unfortunately again the Regional Transport Authority fell into the same error which it had committed earlier. It published 245 applications in the Rajpatra dated 23rd April, 1959; but the application of the petitioner dated 10th February, 1959, was alone published leaving aside his previous applications. The petitioner then submitted a representation to the Transport Authority specifically pointing out that his other applications had not been published and that the Transport Authority could not proceed to consider the applications for grant of permit without duly complying with the requirement of the law on the point. No order appears to have been passed on the said representation. The petitioner was not alone aggrieved in the matter but there appear to be certain other applicants also who suffered a similar fate, Behari Lal being one of them This person again carried the matter to this court and presented an application for writ petition No. 195 of 1959 on the ground that the earlier applications had not been duly published and hence the Transport Authority could not proceed to consider the applications for grant of permit. This petition was again accepted by this Court on the 18th December, 1959, and the Assistant Government Advocate on behalf of the Transport Authority conceded that all the applications would be duly published as required by sec. 57 of the Act. It goes without saying that publication under sec. 57 of the Act was necessary before the Transport Authority proceeded to consider the applications and accept or reject them by granting permits where necessary. The misfortune is that inspite of these repeated orders of this Court and even the undertaking given by the Assistant Government Advocate on behalf of the Transport Authority, the Authority appears to have persisted in its errors. This time again on the 24th of March, 1960, 113 applications were published, but the omission was in regard to the application of the petitioner dated 6th October, 1958. The petitioner naturally objected to the non-publication of his application and he repeated his representations to the Regional Transport Authority pointing out the error. The Transport Authority, according to the case of the petitioner, took no notice of these representations and it issued notice on the 13th April, 1960, to the effect that the applications for grant of permit would be taken up for disposal on the 2nd of June, 1960. In the mean time on the 12th of May, 1960, the petitioner filed this application for writ and obtained a stay order. The petitioner submits that the Regional Transport Authority has been with some tenacity persisting in its erroneous procedure, inspite of the mandatory provision of the law and the directions of this Court. The result unfortunately has been that from time to time some of the parties had to run to this Court and to move this Court for appropriate orders. In the present instance again if the petitioner's standpoint is correct that his application dated 6th October, 1958, was not duly published as required by the law, a writ will have to be granted to him giving appropriate directions for such publication and also preventing the Transport Authority from deciding the question of grant of permits without complying with the provisions of the law. On behalf of the Transport Authority the learned Government Advocate has been unable to dispute the position that the application dated 6th October, 1958 was actually not published; but in the reply the stand taken is that this application had been already rejected by the Authority on the 8th of November, 1958, and information thereof was sent to the petitioner on the 19th of November, 1958. We have seen the records. In the first place, Mr. Vyas is right in contending that the wholesome procedure prescribed under the law has not been followed even in this regard. It is alleged that the application was rejected by circulation only to some of the members. Rule 78 (b) of the Rajasthan Motor Vehicles Rules, 1951, requires that: - "in the event of circulation, the Secretary shall send to each member of the Authority such particulars of the matter as may be reasonably necessary in order to enable the member to arrive at a decision and shall specify the date by which the votes of members are to be received in the office of the Authority. Upon receipt of the votes of members as aforesaid, the Secretary shall lay the papers before the Chairman who shall record the decision by endorsement on the form of application or other document, as the case may be according to the votes received and vote or votes cast by the Chairman. . . . . . . . . " None of these essential formalities appear to have been complied with in any systematic manner. All that has happened is that a short minute was prepared by the Secretary in which he suggested that as no permit could be granted without hearing the existing operator, the petitioner's application could not be considered at that stage and if approved he might be asked to apply when applications were invited. This note appears to have been sent by circulation to two members, Shri Amritlal and Shri B. D. Mathur, who signed it and expressed their approval. It also appears to have been signed by the Chairman Shri S. D. Ujjawal. There does not appear to be any circulation to the other members of the Authority. The rule further requires that no decision shall be made by circulation if before the date by which the votes of members are required to reach the office of the Authority, not less than one-third of the members of the Authority by notice in writing to the Secretary, demand that the matter be referred to a meeting of the Authority. There appear to have been 7 members on the committee. There is no reason why the matter should have been circulated only to a few of them when under the Rules it should have been circulated to each member of the Authority and when there was the opinion of one-third of the members of the Authority to have the matter considered if so advised at a meeting of the Authority itself. Secondly, the minute prepared by the Secretary and the endorsement of approval thereon does not show that there was a rejection of the petitioner's application. All that it does mention is to postpone consideration of the same. Even if we assume that the statement of the Transport Authority is correct that an information of this order was sent to the petitioner on the 29th of November, 1958, about which we are not altogether convinced, the most serious objection to the above order is that the Transport Authority could not reject the petitioner's application without complying with sec. 57 of the Act. The proviso to sub-sec. (3) of sec. 57 enables the Transport Authority to refuse summarily an application for permit without following the procedure laid down in that sub-section, only where the grant of any permit would have the effect of increasing the number of vehicles operating in the region or in any area or on any route within the region, under the class of permits to which the application relates, beyond the limit fixed in that behalf under sub-sec. (3) of sec. 47 or sub-sec. (2) of sec. 55, as the case may be. It is nobody's case that the present application fell under any of those exceptions or any such limit had been fixed by the Regional Transport Authority so as to enable it to summarily reject this application, A compliance with sec. 57 of the Act was, therefore, necessary before any orders could be passed either accepting or rejecting the application in question. It would be useful in this connection to draw the attention of the Regional Transport Authority to the observations already made by this Court in Brothers Transport Service, Nathdwara vs. Regional Transport Authority Udaipur (D. B. Civil Writ Petition No. 199 of 1956, decided on 12. 8. 57) "learned counsel for the applicants urges that it is the duty of the Regional Transport Authority under sec. 57 sub-sec. (3) of the Act to publish all applications and it cannot withhold certain applications and publish only some out of all applications before it. As we read sec. 57, it no doubt contemplates that applications for stage carriage permits will be published as and when they are received by the Regional Transport Authority. Sub-Sec. (2) of sec. 57 makes it clear that any body can make an application for a stage carriage permit at any time provided it is not less than six weeks before the date from which it is desired that the permit should take effect. Therefore, there would be no legal bar to the Regional Transport Authority publishing only one application for permit under sec. 57 subsec. (3 ). At the same time, it is equally obvious that if there are a large number of applications for permits on a particular day before the Regional Transport Authority, it is its duty to publish all those applications together so that all of them may be considered at one sitting. The reason for publishing all applications together is that the number of vehicles permitted on a particular route is always limited. Generally speaking, there are many more applications than the number of vehicles permitted on a route and the Regional Transport Authority has to choose between a large number of applications and give the permits to the best out of them. The procedure provided under sec. 57 requires, however, that the Regional Transport Authority should publish an application for permit and invite objections of those concerned before deciding whether a permit should be granted or not. Now if the Regional Transport Authority has, for example, twenty applications for permits at a particular moment and publishes only one, and the number of permits to be granted is one, it happens that it may grant a permit to the one person, whose application has been published on the ground that there is no other application before it and refuse to consider his case in comparision with the cases of nineteen others whose applications were pending at the same time before the Regional Transport Authority, but were not published by it. Thus, by withholding publication of other applications pending before it, the Regional Transport Authority can show favouritism to one person as against the others. We cannot overemphasise the salutary object of these laws and rules and the necessity of strictly conforming to them. It is because of this utter carelessness in following the rules properly that all the complications arise and delays are caused in the disposal of applications for grant of permit. We hope that errors of this kind will not continue to be repeated by the Authority concerned and we will not have occasion to make any further remarks in the matter. The fact that there may be a large number of applications make it all the more necessary and incumbent on the officer dealing with them to be extra careful so as to leave no loopholes to interested parties and to dispose of the matter according to law as fairly and objectively as the Transport Authority is expected to do. Mr. Kansingh on behalf of the respondents tried to contend that the publication of one of the petitions in the Gazette should be sufficient compliance with the provisions of sec. 57 of the Act. He also drew our attention to sec. 46 (b) of the Act where it is open to the petitioner to mention the number of vehicles which he wants to put on the route and in respect of which he has applied tor permit; but it found it difficult to press these contentions in view of the line adopted by the Regional Transport Authority itself in insisting upon separate applications being filed in accordance with form P. St. P. A. of the forms prescribed under the Rules instead of Form P. St. S. A. and insisting upon the petitioner to pay additional stamps on the separate petitions filed by him. There was nothing in law as Mr. Kansingh suggests to prevent the applications being entertained in accordance with form P. St. S. A. which in our opinion should be the correct form applicable in the circumstances. We accordingly allow this application and issue the writs aforesaid. The petitioner is entitled to his costs; hearing fee Rs. 100/ -. .;