Power of Regional Transport Authority to effect alteration of route.

JAGADISAN, J. :- The petitioner and the first respondent are engaged in the business of transport service, operating motor buses, or stage carriages in the parlance of the Motor Vehicles Act, in and around Chingleput Dt. The first respondent is a limited company holding two stage carriage permits on the route Madras to Kancheepuram. In respect of two of its buses on that route it applied for an extension of that route to a place in North Arcot Dt. called Nemili. The application was made to the Regional Transport authority, Chingleput, and it purported to be an application for variation of the route Madras-Kancheepuram as Madras-Kancheepuram-Nemili. In other words, the applicant-operator desired to shift the terminus of Kancheepuram to Nemili - a place which is at a distance of 15 miles from Kancheepuram. The application was duly notified by the transport authority under S. 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act, hereinafter referred to as the Act, and objections were made by various persons, including the petitioner.

It appears that the authority was inclined to take the view that the variation asked for should not be granted and that the proposal should be dropped. The order to this effect passed by the Regional Transport authority was as follows :

"This Regional Transport authority while it agrees that Kancheepuram should be connected to Nemili, which is in North Arcot Dt. limits, and which is also a Panchayat Union headquarters, does not agree with this proposal, because Nemili will not be a better terminus than Kancheepuram. The variation is also large, viz., 15 miles. This Regional transport authority will therefore bring a proposal to open a new route Kancheepuram to Nemili. The proposal is dropped."

There was a further notification under S. 57(3) of the Act of the respondents application and again objections were preferred by the petitioner amongst other. The objectors submitted that there was no necessity to grant the variation as direct transport facilities were available for passengers between Madras and Nemili, that the area in respect of which the extension of service was sought was already well served by buses running between Madras and Sholinghur and that it would not be in public interest to add more buses on the route.

We may mention that these objections are of a familiar type raised by operators in opposition to applications for variation of route preferred by another rival operator. The Regional Transport authority consistent with its earlier order held that no variation was called for and accordingly rejected the application. The first respondent filed an appeal from this decision of the Regional Transport authority to the State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Madras. The petitioner who no doubt objected to the grant of the variation before the first authority, failed to participate in the hearing of the appeal by the tribunal. The Tribunal considered the question in the light of the contentions put forward by the first respondent and reached the conclusion that the application should be granted as in its view it would be conducive to public interests. It is this order of the tribunal which is now challenged before us under Art. 226 of the Constitution. The petitioner prays for the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the Tribunal mainly on the ground that the route was not a condition of the permit and a variation thereof would fall outside the limits of the power of the Regional Transport authority which extends only to, so the argument runs, matters relating to conditions of permit.

2. The writ petition was heard by Veeraswami, J. in the first instance. A decision of a Bench of this Court in W. A. No. 15 of 1962 (since reported in ILR (1963) Mad 627), Kuppuswamy v. Ramachandran, was cited before the learned Judge by the petitioner in support of the contention that the regional Transport authority had no jurisdiction in the matter. The learned Judge was not inclined to agree with the view taken by