Cancellation of permits must be based on proper allegations and cannot be based on general allegations without particularizing the breach of conditions of each permit.

Per Deepak Gupta, J.

1. The appellants who are transporters have filed these two appeals, which are directed against the judgment dated 18th September, 2007 passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court.

2. The writ petitions before the learned Single Judge were filed by the State Transport Authority and were directed against the order dated 26.10.2006 passed by the learned State Transport Appellate Tribunal. All the writ petitions were allowed. It appears that other than the present two appellants none of the transporters have challenged the main judgement.

3. The facts relevant for decision of the appeals are that the appellants are owners of Delux buses which have been issued All India Route Permits as contract carriage. One of the stipulations of the permit was that the transporters shall comply with the conditions laid down in Rule 85 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989. In case of violation of conditions of the Rules, the permit was liable to be cancelled. Respondent No.1 noticed that either the appellants were not complying with the conditions of the permit or were misusing the permit and were actually using the contract carriage buses as stage carriage buses. Consequently, a notice was issued by the State Transport Authority to the appellants in the year 2003 in which it was alleged that the appellants were required to submit a list of tourist passengers as per the provisions of Rule 85(1) of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 and that the permit holders shall require to maintain a day-to-day log book and shall submit a return to the State Transport Authority every three months based on information such as starting and destination points of journey, with the time of departure and arrival and the names and addresses of the hirers. It was also alleged that under Rule 85(5) of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 the appellant was required to issue a receipt to the hirer and the counterfoil of the same was required to be produced. Basically, the allegation was that the vehicle was not being used as contract carriage but as a state carriage.

4. The appellants replied to the notice and alongwith the notice sent certain documents. However, the appellants also informed the authority that the passenger lists were made but since the RTA office never asked for the same the record of the same has not been kept. Log books were never maintained since the department had not issued log books to the transporters and that the some of the transporters were maintaining Form PGT-20, receipt and counterfoils. Thereafter, another show cause notice was issued to the transporters on 10th November, 2003 in which it was clearly stated that the appellants had failed to furnish any statement and on examination of the documents submitted by the appellants no log book was produced. The name and addresses of the hirers as required under Rule 85(10) were not furnished and therefore, the genuineness of the receipts could not be verified. Thereafter, another show cause notice was issued to the appellants stating therein as to why action under Section 80 be not taken to cancel their permits. In this notice it was clearly mentioned that the appellants had violated Rules 85(10) and (11) of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989. Thereafter, the State Transport Authority after considering the case of the appellants and taking into account the difficulty being faced by the appellants devised a method of compounding the offence(s) at a fixed amount of Rs.50,000/- per vehicle. This amount was arrived at by making an average assessment of Rs.97,000/- per vehicle, if it had been plied as a stage carriage. The transporters did not deposit this amount and consequently their permits were cancelled vide letter(s) dated 20.12.2003. The appellants alongwith other transporters filed appeals before the Appellate Authority, who remanded the matter back to the respondents. It would be pertinent to mention that the State Transport Tribunal decided abou