R.S.GARG, J.

1. This order shall dispose of C. W. J. C. No. 9588 of 2002 (Binay Shankar Tiwari V/s. The State of Bihar and others) along with the nine writ applications, the descriptions of which have been mentioned above.

2. In all the writ application except in C. W. J. C. No. 9918 of 2002 (Raj Kishore Singh and others V/s. The State of Bihar and others) the applications filed by the petitioners before us, for accepting the surrender of the vehicles in accordance with Sec. 17 of the Bihar Motor Vehicles Taxation Act, 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the Taxation Act) have been rejected while in C. W. J. C. No. 9918/2002 no final orders on an application to accept the surrender have been passed.

3. The petitioners, various in number, are having different motor vehicles. The said motor vehicles are registered with the State Transport Authority/Regional Transport Officers. The vehicles undisputedly are in running conditions and if the surrender is not accepted then are liable to tax.

4. For the purpose of disposal of these writ applications, we will take the facts from C. W. J. C. No. 9588 of 2002. Vide Annexure-1 the petitioner submitted an application dated 26-7-2002 before the District Transport Officer, Ara in relation to Bus bearing Registration No. BR3P-6339 inter alia submitting that looking to the unprecedented tax hike he was unable to ply his bus and under these circumstances he was surrendering the vehicle. He also submitted that if the tax conditions do not improve then after obtaining required No Objection Certificate he would take the bus to another State. It was contended that after the surrender, the vehicle shall stand parked in front of his gate. In all cases though in different forms but the applications seeking the relief of surrender have been filed.

5. The application of the petitioner in C. W. J. C. No. 9588 of 2002 was rejected on 3-8-2002. The rejection order observed that his application was not maintainable under Rule 7(1)(a) of the Bihar Motor Vehicles Taxation Rules, 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) and under Sec. 48 of the Motor Vehicles Act. It was also observed that in accordance with Sec. 17(1) of the Taxation Act and in view of the Memo No. 1-2099/89-376 Patna dated 12-1-1990 and letter No. (4) 3106 Patna 15 dated 20-12-1990, the surrender of the vehicle could be accepted only under the following circumstances :-

"(a) If the vehicle is involved in any accident resulting in extensive damage; (b) If the vehicle is seized by the police or under the order of the Court and remained in seizure for a period of one month; and (c) Major repairs of the vehicles which is expected to take more than one month."

6. Vide Annexure-2 the petitioner was informed that as the surrender application was not referring to any condition of the above referred clauses, the application for surrender was not acceptable to the Department and the application was rejected. The petitioner was required to withdraw the papers and deposit the tax timely because failure may lead to penalty.

7. The petitioners submitted that their applications were in accordance with Sec. 17 of the Taxation Act and the Department could not reject the applications. They also submitted that rejection of grant of No Objection Certificate was also illegal because when an owner of a motor vehicle applying for a new assignment of a registration mark or where mass transfer of motor vehicles is to be accepted for any of the State other than the State of its registration, the registered owner shall apply for issuance of No Objection Certificate for sending it to the registering authority of the other State for its assignment, and therefore, the order passed by the authority is patently illegal. It is contended by the petitioner that after surrender of the vehicle he was insisting for issuance of No Objection Certificate on the ground that the petitioner shall remove the vehicle from the State of Bihar to any other State in order to make i