Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

The appeal is by a person who is not a party to the writ petition; his grievance is that the first respondent filed a writ petition behind his back and obtained a judgment to the appellant's prejudice. His complaint confounds the first respondent's conduct for he filed his previous writ petition on the issue arraying the appellant as a party.

Facts As Set Out By The Appellant:

2. The appellant is the registered owner of stage carriage with registration No. KL-13/K-5986. The vehicle has a regular permit to operate on the route Mundathaduka-Kasaragod. Initially, the 1st respondent was issued with a temporary permit for his vehicle No. KL-13/J-7585 to operate on the route Mundathaduka- Kasaragod-Kambar (Via), Neerchal, B.C Road Civil Station. The permit, given in the vacancy of another stage carriage, had the permit valid up to 18.12.2015.

3. The appellant has a grievance that the first respondent's route permit stretches 3 km., into the appellant's permitted route, its total stretch being 28 km. The appellant submitted an objection before the RTA authorities: The permissible overlapping is 5% of the total route length; it comes to 1.4 km. But the first respondent's route overlaps by over 5%--to be precise by 3 km. The authorities, therefore, should not renew the temporary permit to the first respondent. The appellant, after complaining, filed W.P.(C) No. 37837/2015 seeking a direction to the authorities to consider his objections.

4. As a result, the 2nd respondent, through proceeding dated 15.01.2016 (Exhibit P5), rejected the first respondent's application for a temporary permit or its extension. Aggrieved, the 1st respondent preferred W.P.(C) No. 8507/2016. The appellant and the KSRTC, the rival route-operators, were arrayed as the respondents in the writ petition. Initially the writ petition was admitted, and later, on 08.04.2016, the Court directed the matter to be posted after summer vacation. The first respondent has got no interim relief.

5. During the summer vacation, while W.P.(C) No. 8507/2016 was subsisting, on 28.04.2016 the first respondent filed W.P.(C) No. 16525/2016, contending that his application (Exhibit P2) for a temporary permit submitted by him on 28.04.2016 itself was yet to be considered by the 1st respondent.

6. A learned Single Judge disposed of the writ petition on 29.04.2016, at the inception, directing the second respondent to issue a temporary permit to the first respondent for four months. The direction was acted upon. When the first respondent started operating his bus on the route, the appellant made enquiries; and, startled at the subsequent developments, he rushed to the Court. In the appeal, he sought the Court's leave to impugn the judgment, to which he was not a party.

Facts As Set Out By The First Respondent:

7. The first respondent has a motor vehicle (bus) being operated on a particular route. First, he had a vehicle with Reg.No.KL-14-E-3494 with a regular permit in 2012. He sold the vehicle but retained the permit. As the validity of the permit came to an end, on 20th March 2012, the first respondent applied to the authorities for renewal; but, in the meanwhile, he secured a job abroad and left. Intermittently, whenever he came back home, he went on enquiring with the authorities about the renewal of the route permit.

8. In 2014, the authorities' failing to renew the route permit, the first respondent filed a writ petition, the details of which are not available on the record. This Court seems to have directed the first respondent to file a fresh application; the direction was on the premise that the timing of the route the first respondent had initially applied for might have been allotted to some other operator in the interim.

9. In the light of the decision of this Court referred to above, the first respondent, having come back to India for good, applied