Wanchoo, C. J. - (1.) THESE are three connected applications under Art. 226 of the Constitution by Hazarimal (No. 301), Banshilal (No. 333), and Surajmal (62) against the Regional Transport Authority Jaipur and others for issue of a writ, order or direction prohibiting the Regional Transport Authority and other from interfering with the applicants in plying their buses on the Sikar Deedwana road.
(2.) THE facts, which are not in dispute, are these - THE applicants were granted permits by the Jodhpur Regional Transport Authority on the 13th and 14th March, 1953. THEse per mit were to be valid up to the 31st of December, 1955. As part of this route lay in the Jaipur region, the applicants had to get the counter-signature of the Jaipur Transport Authority under sec. 63 of the Motor Vehicles Act. THEy applied to the Jaipur Authority on the 13th April, 1953, for countersignature. At the same time, a letter was also received by the Jaipur Authority from the Jodhpur Authority requesting the Jaipur Authority to counter-sign the permits. In the meantime, the Jaipur Authority had passed a resolution between the 20th and 24th March, 1953, with respect to this very route. By that resolution, it granted three permits to three persons and said that a fourth permit might be granted to any one recommended by the Jodhpur Authority. However, when the letter of the Jodhpur Authority was received along with application of two out of the present three applicants for counter signature, the Secretary of the Jaipur Authority counter-signed the permits for the period ending on the 30th of April, 1953. THE matter was put up before the Regional Transport Authority on the 28th of April, 1953, and the Regional Transport Authority resolved that it could not counter-sign the permits granted by the Jodhpur Authority, and that that Authority should be informed that only one permit would be counter-signed. It appears however that even after this resolution, the Jaipur Authority counter-signed the permits of all three applicants for a period ending 31st of July, 1953, or thereabout. THE matter was also referred by the Jaipur Authority to the State Transport Authority for decision. THEn there was further counter signature up to the 31st of August, 1953, in two of the cases. THEreafter, when the applicants again applied in September, 1953, to the Jaipur Authority praying their permit might be counter-signed temporarily till the decision of the State Transport Authority, there was no counter-signature by the Jaipur Authority, though it did not by any order refuse the request for counter-signature. THEreafter, it seems |hat the Jaipur Authority directed the Superintendent of Police, Sikar to take action in the matter as the permits were not counter-signed after the 31st of August, 1953. When the Superintendent of Police began to take action against the applicants, they gave notice to the Jaipur Authority, and to the Superintendent of Police. No reply was received from the Jaipur Authority but the Superintendent of Police informed them that he had taken action on the direction of the Jaipur Authority. THEreafter, the present applications were made to this Court. It may be mentioned that a stay order was issued by this Court after hearing both the parties, and the applicants have continued playing their buses up to new. The applications have been opposed on behalf of the Regional Transport Authority Jaipur. It has been contended that it was competent for the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur, to counter-sign the permits for any period shorter than that for which the permits had been granted by the Jodhpur Authority. It was further contended that applicants had a remedy by way of filing an appeal under sec 64 (b) of the Motor Vehicles Act, and therefore the applications for writ should be refused. The third contention is that the applicants could file a suit for declaration and injunction, and therefore this Court should not help the applicants in its extraordinary jurisdiction. Lastly, it is contended that as the Regional Transport Authority did not go through the procedure provided by sec. 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act the counter-signature, which was made on more than one occasion, was of no effect what-soever, and that the applicant's contention that a counter-signature once made would be good for the entire period of the permit, which was being counter-signed, was in any case incorrect. We shall first deal with the contention that the applicants should have filed an appeal under sec. 64 (d) of the Motor Vehicles Act. Under that provision, any person aggrieved by the refusal of a Regional Transport Authority to counter-sign a permit, or by condition attached to such counter-signature can appeal. It is enough to say that the right of appeal arises under this provision when there is a refusal to counter-sign, and such refusal can only be by an order of the Regional Transport Authority to that effect. In this case, there is no order of the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur, refusing to sign the permit. All that is being urged is that after September, 1953, the prayer for counter signature was not accepted, and therefore this amounted to a refusal. We fail to see what stopped the Regional Transport Authority Jaipur from refusing in express terms to counter-sign the permit and informing the applicants that it was refusing to do so, It is enough in this connection to refer to Shivnarain vs. the Regional Transport Authority Jaipur (l) where it has been held at page 326 that unless an order is passed against a person there can be no question of filing an appeal to a higher authority. In the present case, we have been shown no order refusing to counter-sign the permits, and therefore it was not possible for the applicants to appeal to the higher authority against an order refusing to counter-sign the permits. It is next submitted that the present applications should be dismissed on the ground that it was open to the applicants to file a suit and get an injunction. We have serious doubt whether such a suit would be maintainable. In any case, the position today is that the permits have only three months to run, and if we now tell the applicants that they should file a suit they would not be able to get any relief before the expiry of the period of their permits. In these special circumstances therefore we feel that we should not dismiss these applicants today on this ground. The next question that arises for consideration is whether the Regional Transport Authority Jaipur had power under sec. 63 of the Motor Vehicles Act to countersign a permit for a period shorter than that for which it had been issued. Sec 63 deals with counter-signing permits for use outside the Region in which they were granted Sub-sec. (1) makes it clear that permit granted for one, region is not valid in another region unless counter-signed by the Regional Transport Authority of the other region. Sub-sec. (2) lays down what authority a Regional Transport Authority has in the matter of counter-signature and runs as follows "a Regional Transport Authority when counter-signing the permit may attach to the permit any condition which it might have imposed if it had granted the permit and may likewise vary any condition attached to the permit by the Authority by which the permit was granted. " Then comes sub-sec. (3) which provides a procedure for counter-signing of permits, and lays down that the procedure relating to the grant, revocation and suspension of counter-signatures shall be the same as applies to the grant, revocation and suspension of permits. We may not here that sec. 63, -sub-sec. (1), and (3) deal with permits like sec. 57 to 61, and have nothing to do with temporary permits which are dealt with in sec. 62. It is sub-sec. (4) of sec. 63 which deals with temporary permits relating to other original routes. Sub-sec. (4) shows that no counter-signature is required under it in the matter of temporary permits. The extent of a Regional Transport Authority's power in the matter of counter-signature is thus to be found in sub-sec. (2), and that extent is the same as the power of a Regional Transport Authority in granting a permit. Now when a Regional Transport Authority grants a permit, it is bound, in view of sec. 58 (1) to give a period of at least 3 to at the most 5 years as the duration of the permit. It cannot grant a permit under sec. 57 to 61 of the Act for less than a period of 3 years. Therefore, when another Regional Transport Authority is asked to counter-sign a permit already granted, it can only counter-sign it for the period for which a permit has been granted by the first Authority or for the minimum period of three years, if the first Authority had granted it for more than 3 years. It cannot, however, reduce the period to less than 3 years. In these circumstances, we are of opinion that the Jaipur Transport Authority could not counter-sign the permit in this case for less than the period for which it had been granted, for the permits were not granted for more than 3 years by the Jodhpur Authority. We now come to the last point raised on behalf of the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur, namely, that because it did not itself follow the provision contained in sec. 57, sub-sec. (3) of the Act, therefore the countersignature which was put on these permits by it more than once was of no effect whatsoever, and therefore the applicants have no right to ply their buses on this route on the basis of this counter-signature. We must say that this is a very curious position for the Jaipur Transport Authority to take. It had full authority to refuse to counter-sign the permits, but it did not avail itself of that. Instead it counter-signed the permits more than once for short periods. It was open to it to tell the applicants that it would not counter-sign the permits till the procedure under sec. 57 had been gone through. But it appears that the permits were counter-signed without that procedure being gone through, though for short periods It seems to us that the fact that the procedure under sec. 58 (3) was not followed would not make the counter-signature completely void. The effect, to our mind, would only be that it would give a right to those who were interested and could appeal under sec. 64 to go to the Appellate Authority and ask it to cancel the counter-signature on the ground that the procedure under sec. 57 had not been followed. It would, in our opinion, be wrong to hold that where an Authority grants a permit or makes a countersignature without going through the procedure provided by law, the permit or the countersignature is of no avail to the person to whom the permit has been granted, or on whose permit the counter-signature has been made. We may in this connection refer to United Motor Transport Co. Ltd. , vs. Sreelakshmi Motor Transport Co. Ltd. (2) where the following observations occur - "it is quite clear that the procedure laid down in sec. 57 must be followed by the transport authority when dealing with application for permits. If that authority either grants a permit or refuses a permit without following the procedure laid down in sec. 57, it would be a case of material irregularity and the order for granting or refusing permit, as the case may be, will be liable to be set aside by appellate authority on an appeal being preferred under sec. 64 of the Act by a person aggrieved by the refusal, when the permit had been refused, or on an appeal preferred by a local authority, or by the police or by a person providing transport facilities who had opposed the grant of the permit, where the permit has been granted. In our judgment such a permit would not be a void document. It will have to be revoked at the instance of persons mentioned in cl. (f) of sec. 64, by the appellate tribunal, and if not revoked or till revoked will be a valid permit. " We are of opinion that this is the right view to take. Whether the permit in such circumstances would be valid for the period for which it was granted, or for a minimum period of three years under sec. 58 is a different matter with which we shall deal presently. But we have no doubt that where a transport authority grants a permit without following the procedure provided by sec. 57, that permit will be valid unless set aside by a higher authority on appeal by some one entitled to appeal under sec. 64. The reason for this is that the transport authority concerned has the power to grant a permit and if it has not followed the procedure which should be followed in granting the permit, that may give rise to a right of appeal in persons interested, but will not make the permit void, though it may be liable to be set aside by the appellate authority. We, therefore, reject the submission on behalf of the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur, that though they made the counter-signature it was a void permit because they had not carried out the provisions of sec. 57 of the Act. The next question is what is the effect of the counter-signature in this case, which were made more that once on the permits of the applicants. Is that counter-signature valid on for the short period for which it was made or for the entire period of the permit on which it was made. In this connection, learned counsel for the applicants relied on United Motor Transport Co. Ltd's case (2) referred to above, where the learned Judge of the Calcutta High Court have held that once a permit has been granted even though without following the provisions of sec. 57, and for a shorter period, it would attract the provisions of sec. 58, and would be valid for 3 years. This view was not accepted in Motilal vs. the Government of the State of Uttar Pradesh (3) where it was pointed out that sec. 58 merely dealt with the duration of permits, and could not be so construed as to convert a permit issued without authority into a regular permit. The facts of the Calcutta case (2) and the Allahabad case (3) are, in our opinion, distinguishable from the facts of the present case. In those cases a permit had been granted against the rules for a shorter period. They were not cases of counter-signature of a valid permit, We need not, therefore, express any opinion as to the correctness of the views expressed in those two cases, and shall confine ourselves only to cases, of counter-signature on a valid permit under sec. 63. As we have held, the transport authority has no power, under sec. 63 (2) when countersigning a permit, to counter-sign it for a period less then 3 years which is the minium prescribed under sec 58, therefore when the Jaipur Authority in this case counter-signed these permits, the counter signature, in our opinion, must be held to validate the permit for the Jaipur Region for the entire period for which it had been issued by the Jodhpur Region for the period was not more than three years. The Jaipur Authority concerned, as to we have said before, could refuse to counter-sign, then it could not But if it did counter-sign, then it could not impose any period shorter than the minium period of three years as the duration for the counter-signature. In these circumstances, the Jaipur Authority having counter-signed these permits must be deemed to have countersigned them for the entire period of the permits, which in this case was not more than 3 years, and the putting down of a shorter period must under the circumstances, be ignored. We are, therefore, of opinion that the applicants are entitled to direction from us to the effect that the Regional Transport Authority Jaipur should not interfere with their plying the buses on the Deedwana-Sikar route during the period for which they were granted permits by the Jodhpur Authority. We, therefore, allow the applications, and direct the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur, not to interfere with the plying of buses by the applicant on the Deedwana-Sikar route for the period for which permit have been granted to them by the Jodhpur Authority. We do not pass any order against the other opposite party because they have been acting on the instructions of the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur. The applicants will get their costs from the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur. ;