The decision established that an enquiry by the State Transport Authority regarding the need to grant permit on any route included under an inter-State agreement is totally unnecessary and that Sec. 47(3) of the Act stands excluded for opening routes lying in two States.

M. P. CHANDRAKANTARAJ, J.

( 1 ) THE brief facts necessary for disposing of this long pending writ petition are as follows : The petitioner was an existing stage carriage operator on the inter-State route Tumkur to Hindupur via Beladhara, Koratagere, Madhugiri, kodigenahally and Muddenahalli gate and back. That permit was valid for one round trip. In the year 1976 the state of Karnataka and the State of andhra Pradesh entered into an agreement as provided for in Sec. 63 (3) (A) of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT, 1939, 1939, (hereinafter referred to as the Act ). In that agreement for the aforementioned route the two round trips were agreed upon between the States. In the light of that agreement coming into force between the two States, the petitioner made en application under sub-sec. (8) of Sec. 57 of the Act for variation of the conditions of his permit by increasing the number of trips i. e. , by adding one more round trip. That application is dated 8-1-1976. Similarly, some of the respondents herein also made applications for grant of a fresh permit on the same route or somewhat similar route. One of them had a different route. All the applications were clubbed together by the 2nd respondent-State Transport authority and heard at its meeting held on 13-7-1976 in Subject Nos. 189,190, 191 and 193. Each of the applicants had among others several other objectors also. All of them were heard. In the two main arguments, in addition to advancing their respective claims for the grant of the permit or the variation as the case may be, were that without ascertaining whether the need existed for en additional service on the route in question, the State Transport Authority could not proceed. The thrust of that argument was that the procedure for granting variation or a new permit being the same as found in Sec. 57 (8) of the act. Sec. 47 (1) of the Act was attracted and the conditions must first be examined by the State Transport authority and if those conditions do not exist, the question of granting permit or varying the conditions of the permit would not arise. The other argument was that once the inter-State agreement was entered into between the two States and the two State Governments agreed not only on the routes but also on the number of trips that each routes should have, it tantamounted to determining the need and therefore there would be no need for the State Transport Authority to go into that question afresh and re-examine the need under sub-sec. (1) of Sec. 47 of the Act. To the respondent-State Transport Authority, the latter argument appealed and accepting that as the basis it concluded that it need not re-examine the existence of the need for an additional trip to be granted to the petitioner or to grant a fresh permit to one of the others. After reaching that conclusion it proceeded to consider the rival claims and found that from the point of view of economy of operation and in public interest the petitioner's claim for variation should be granted and that would meet the requirements of the agreement. Aggrieved by the same, the appeals were filed before the 1st respondent-State Transport Appellate tribunal, Bangalore. The State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Bangalore, in turn, clubbing together all the appeals before it in Appeals Nos. 822, 856, 893, 897 and 892/1976 formulated three questions for determination : (1) Whether the need was established by the inter-State agreement between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh; (2) Whether the broad sheet was necessary to be prepared when all the applications for the same route were taken up for consideration; (3) Whether the timings affect the services of the appellants.

( 2 ) APPARENTLY, the last question formulated was in regard to the timings assigned to the present petitioner in this court for the additional round trip granted to him. But that question did not remain to be answered nor the second. in the light of the answer given by the Tribunal to the first question discussing appa

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