- (1.) THIS is a writ application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and it arises in the following circumstances.
(2.) THE petitioner is a bus operator. He has got a permit to ply one bus on a route which is known as "kota-Chambal-dam route". There are six more permit holders on the same route. Non-petitioners Nos. 3 and 4, namely, Lajpat Rai and Shantilal and a few others filed applications under Section 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act, which will hereinafter be referred as "the Act," for the grant of fresh permits on the said route. These applications were filed by them suo motu that is without any application having been invited by the authority. Those applications were published in the Rajasthan Gazette. The petitioner and other existing permit-holders filed objections to the grant of fresh permits. The Regional Transport Authority Kota fixed September 11 and September 12, 1963 for consideration of five applications including those of non-petitioners Nos. 3 and 4. They were heard in the meeting held on September 11 and Sept. 12, 1963. The objections of the existing operators were also heard. The applications for fresh permits were not decided by the Regional Transport Authority because there were instructions from the State Transport Authority not to grant permits on A class route to any applicant except to the displaced operators or to the would be displaced operators. In its resolution it was observed by the Regional Transport Authority that the applications for fresh permits including those of non-petitioners Nos. 3 and 4 may be kept pending. Aggrieved by this order non-petitioners Nos. 3 and 4 filed a revision application before the State Transport Authority under Section 64-A of the act. That application was decided by the State Transport Authority on Dec. 18, 1963. It is this order whose validity is sought to be challenged by the present application. The impugned order is a short one and therefore it would not be improper to reproduce it here. It runs as follows: "heard arguments on merits of the case. The restriction imposed by s. T. A. banning the grant of permits on 'a' class routes is relaxed in this particular case under the special circumstances and keeping in view the public inconvenience. The Revision is partially accepted and the case is remanded to R. T. A. Kota to deal with the applications of petitioners according to law. Order announced to party".
(3.) IT is contended by the learned counsel for the petitioner that his client was an existing operator on the said route, that he was thus an interested party and he should have been impleaded as a respondent in the revision application. The only respondent in the revision application was the Regional Transport Authority Kota. Other existing operators whose interests were to be vitally affected were not impleaded as respondents and thus the revision application was incompetent.;