A person aggrieved by the refusal to grant a permit has a right to appeal under Section 64(a) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, and the Appellate Tribunal has the power to set aside the order of renewal made by the State Transport Authority.

Judgment

SARKAR, J. : This appeal arises out of an application for a writ of certiorari and involves questions of interpretation of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (4 of 1939) by which grants of permits to run stage carriages and all matters connected therewith are governed.

2. The appellant was the holder of a permit to run a stage carriage on a stretch of the public highway called the Rewa-Singrauli route, in the State of Vindhya Pradesh which is now merged in the State of Madhya Pradesh. That permit was due to expire on 11-12-1955, and so on 12-9-1955, he made an application for its renewal for a further period. The respondent Anant Prasad who will be referred to as the respondent, made a representation against the renewal of the appellant s permit. He also applied for the grant of the permit to himself. On 9-12-1955, the State Transport Authority, Vindhya Pradesh made an order in the following terms: "Renewed for three years". It is not in dispute that the order meant that the appellant s permit was renewed for three years. No express order was made on the respondent s application for the grant of the permit to him.

3. The respondent preferred an appeal against this order to the Vindha Pradesh Transport Appellate Tribunal, the appellate authority under the Act. It was contended by the appellant before the Appellate Tribunal that the appeal was not competent. The Appellate Tribunal rejected this contention and passed an order cancelling the permit granted to the appellant by the State Transport Authority and issuing the permit to the respondent.

4. The appellant then moved the judicial Commissioners, Vindhya Pradesh for a writ of certiorari quashing the order of the Appellate Tribunal on the ground that it disclosed an error on the face of it because under the Act no appeal lay from the order that was passed by the subordinate authority. The learned Judicial Commissioner held that the appeal was competent and dismissed the application for the writ. Hence the present appeal.

5. The question is, Did an appeal lie to the Appellate Tribunal from the order made by the State Transport Authority in the present case? Section 64 of the Act contains the provisions for appeals. Whether the appeal lay or not will have to be decided by reference to these provisions. The portion of the section which will have to be considered is in these terms:

Section 64. Any person-

(a) aggrieved by the refusal of the State or a Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit,.. . ....... or

......................................

(e) aggrieved by the refusal of renewal of a permit,. . . ... .. or

(f) being a local authority or police authority or an association which, or a person providing transport facilities who, having opposed the grant of a permit is aggrieved by the grant thereof . .. . . . . .. ... . . ... .. . may, . . . . . . .. . .. . appeal to the prescribed authority. . . . ......

6. The prescribed authority was as we have earlier stated, the Appellate Tribunal. Clearly the respondent was not a person contemplated by cl. (e) of the section. It is also not in dispute that he was not one of those mentioned in cl. (f). The respondent does not claim that any of these clauses gave him the right of appeal.

7. He however claims a right of appeal under cl. (a). In our view that claim is justified. He had applied for a permit and had not got it. He was therefore a person aggrieved by the refusal to grant a permit and clearly came within cl. (a). It is true that the order of the State Transport Authority did not expressly refuse him the permit. But that no doubt was the effect of the order that was made. He had made an application for the grant of the permit to him and the application was disposed of without granting him the permit but granting it to a competing applicant. There was only one permit which could be granted and the result of the order was to give it to the appellant. The permit was thereby necessarily refused to the respondent. The fact that an express