Judgment

D. A. DESAI, J:- The appellants applied for ternporary permits under Section 68-F (1 -C) for plying the passenger vehicles on Klurja-Pahasu-Chhatari-Dabai-Rajghat-Ramghat-Atrauli route (route for"short") which applications came to be rejected by the State Transport Authority and their appeal to the State Transport Appellate Tribunal and a writ petition to the High Court of Allababad did not meet with success.

2. It is a common ground that in respect of the route a scheme has been prepared and published under Section 68-C of Chapter IV-A of Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. The route in question is an inter regional route and therefore an application for temporary permit for the period intervening between the date of publication of the scheme and the date of publication of the approved or modified scheme has to be made to the State Transport Authority under Sec. 68-F (1-C). Ignoring the previous history of the litigation for the present, it may be noticed that the appellants made applications to the State Transport Authority for grant of temporary permits to ply their vehicles on the route. The U. P. State Road Transport Corporation (Corporation for short) also made an application for grant of three temporary permits for the same purpose and the application of the Corporation for three permits was granted while the application made by each of the apellants was rejected on the ground that once a scheme has been published in view of the provision contained in Section 68-F (I-A) the Corporation alone, to the exclusion of others, is entitled to apply for temporary permit and if such application is made by the Corporation and granted no one else is entitled to obtain a temporary permit. This decision of the State Transport Authority has been upheld both by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal and the High Court.

3. Section 68-F (1) makes it obligatory upon the State Transport Authority or Regional Transport Authority as the case may be to grant permit of the nature envisaged in the section to the Corporation to the exclusion of any other applicant. Section 68-F (1-A) confers; power on the State Transport Authority or the Regional Transport Authority as the case may be, for the period intervening between the date of publication of the scheme and the date of publication of the approved or modified scheme to increase in public interest the number of vehicles operating on the route or the area in respect of which the scheme has been publisbed by State Transport Corporation under Section 68-C and further enables the Corporation to apply for temporary permits to ply the vehicles during the interregnum. On such applications being made it is obligatory upon the State Transport Authority or the Regional Transport Authority as the case may be to grant such temporary permits. Section 68-F (1-B) is not relevant for the present purpose.

4. Section 68-F (I-C) reads as under :-

"If no application for a temporary permit is made under sub-section (1-A), the State Transport Authority or the Regional Transport Authority, as the case may be, may grant, subject to such conditions as it may think fit, temporary permit to any person in respect of the area or route or portion thereof specified in the scheme and the permit so granted shall cease to be effective on the issue of a permit to the State Transport Undertaking in respect of that area or route or portion thereof."

Section 68-F (1-D) takes away the power of permit granting authority to grant or renew any permit during the period inter-vening between the date of publication, under Section 68-C of any scheme and the date of publication of the approved or modified scheme, in favour of any person for any class of road transport service in relation to an area or route or portion tbereof covered by such scheme except as provided in sub-section (1-A) and sub-section (1-C).

5. The Corporation has published a scheme in respect of the route. Even when a scheme is published it is open to the State Transport Author