A party cannot raise an objection as to lack of jurisdiction at a belated stage if they have waived the objection by participating in the enquiry without raising such a defense.

ORDER :- The petitioner was the respondent in an appeal filed by the respondent in this civil revision petition before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal. The subject-matter of the appeal related to the grant of renewal of a stage carriage permit for the bus MDS 4009 (since replaced by MDU 8715) in respect of the route Kambainallur to Hogainaikkal via Dharmapuri for a period of five years from 9-6-1971. The respondent herein had also applied for the grant of a stage carriage permit to him to ply on the same route. The relevant dates may now be noticed. The normal permit of the petitioner was to expire on 9-6-1971. He made an application for renewal on 9-2-1971. Representations were called for under Section 57 (3) of the Motor Vehicles Act on 5-4-1971, and the last date for filing such representations was fixed at 30-4-1971. The respondent herein sent his representations on 28-4-1971, and also made a counter application for the grant of the permit in his favour which was also notified in the usual manner on 4-5-1971. Again representations on the counter application made by the respondent were called for and a date for filing such representations was also fixed. At the meeting of the subject by the Regional Transport authority on 18-9-1971, the respondent's application was refused and the petitioner's application for renewal was granted. Against this order the respondent filed an appeal. The appellate authority allowed the appeal after considering the merits and qualifications of both the petitioner and the respondent. The appellate authority found that the petitioner was not a suitable person for being considered for renewal in preference to the respondent who applied for an independent grant of the permit to himself. While coming to this conclusion the appellate authority took into consideration three suspensions suffered by the petitioner in respect of non-adherence to schedule of timings, overload of passengers and missing of trips. The appellate Tribunal was of the view that they were serious offences from the point of view of public interest and therefore denied renewal to the petitioner. It also found as a fact that the respondent had experience of 8 years and 7 months, had his own workshop, resides on the route and was a single bus operator with a clean history and therefore he deserved an encouragement. The appeal therefore was allowed. As against this the present civil revision petition has been filed.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner did not touch upon the merits but argued a legal question about the want of jurisdiction the part of the authorities in having entertained an application by the respondent for the grant of an independent permit when an application for renewal was contemporaneously on file for consideration. The main ground of attack can be stated in the words of the petitioner as presented in the grounds of revision :

"1. The grant of the permit to the respondent herein is vitiated by illegality and material irregularity in the exercise of jurisdiction and is totally without jurisdiction in so far as Section 57(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act requires that any application for permit should be made within not less than six weeks from the date on which the permit would take effect and any application for renewal was to be made 120 days before the expiry of the permit, and in the present case, the respondent had made his application for permit only on 30-4-1971 while the permit was renewed with effect from 9-6-1971, the difference being 40 days.

2. The learned Appellate Tribunal acted with illegality and material irregularity in the exercise of jurisdiction and also acted totally without jurisdiction in granting the respondent a permit on the route Kumbainallur to Hogeneikal, when the application made by him under the Act was for the route Dharmapuri to Hogeneikal, the distance of the former route being 42 miles and the latter 28 miles, when the proviso to Section 48 (1) of the Motor Vehicles Act read : P

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