JUDGMENT :

1. The present challenge has been taken out against a decision of the State Transport Authority, West Bengal, refusing the petitioner’s application for renewal of a permit to ply a bus from Nabadwip town to Barakar, extended from Nabadwip to Krishnanagar via Asansol, Panagarh, Satgachia, Burdwan vide D1720 dated September 22, 2021 and D-184 dated January 25, 2022 (Permit No. P.St.P.01/1991 (I/R), valid up to October 8, 2021).

2. The petitioner has been plying his bus on the said route for about the last forty years. However, by the impugned decision, the respondent-Authority refused further renewal of such permit on the sole ground that if the proposal for renewal of permit is to be accepted with time table not in sync with permit route alignment, the proposal would be “consideration of renewal of a different permit and not the proposed one” in accordance with provision of Section 80(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the 1988 Act’), which is not possible at this stage, keeping it open to consider the application for renewal if the applicant submits a “clash-free revised time table in sync with permit route alignment” and other updated papers and requisite fees required for such renewal.

3. The basis of such ground of refusal was the finding of the Authority that the permit was issued in accordance with the route alignment but the time table issued in “reversed” direction “perhaps due to inadvertence” but that, as a matter of practice, the time table should be in sync with the route as shown in the permit.

4. Upon hearing learned counsel for the parties, the following decision is arrived at by the court.

5. The primary contention of the petitioner, that the signatory of the forwarding letter of the order was not authorized to pass the order, is not acceptable.

6. It is seen from the order itself, a copy of which is annexed at page 43 of the writ petition, that the Secretary, State Transport Authority (STA), West Bengal was the Authority who passed the order, signed the same and before whom the matter was heard on March 23, 2022.

7. The forwarding letter dated April 5, 2022, sent to the petitioner along with the order, was a mere instrument of convenience to serve the order and not the order itself. The mere misstatement in the said communication regarding the order being passed by the “undersigned”, who was an RTO and Ex-Officio Assistant Director, STA, West Bengal, is irrelevant, since it is evident from the order itself that the same was passed by the Secretary, STA, who is the appropriate Authority in law having jurisdiction to do so.

8. However, the second ground of challenge in the writ petition is worth consideration on merits. It is seen from the time-schedule (time table), which was observed not to be “in sync” with the permit route alignment, that the same contained a single column mentioning the stoppages of the vehicle. The left column thereto indicated the “up departure” and the right column thereto the “down arrival” timings.

9. The stoppage mentioned at the top of the column is Barakar and the last Krishnanagar. Although the route as mentioned in the permits was mentioned in reverse order, that I,S Nabadwip town to Barakar (extended up to Krishnanagar), the order of consecutive stoppages, even if it seems reverse to the permit at first blush, in reality, is not so.

10. In fact, the respective time-schedules of departure and arrival at the respective stoppages have both been mentioned. Instead of expending two columns mentioning the same stoppages in reverse order, a single column has been used to mention the stoppages and the respective arrivals and departures have been mentioned corresponding to each stoppage in the left and right columns.

11. It is clearly mentioned in the temporary permits as well as permanent permit, which have been granted for so long, that the permit was for the said route “for one round trip daily”. Hence, the route was not unidirectional but contempl