The authority must balance permits between existing operators and new entrants to promote fair competition and public interest, ensuring applications comply with authorization and tax regulations.

JUDGMENT :

Mr. Harsimran Singh Sethi, J.

1. Present are the bunch of three writ petitions of which details are mentioned in the heading, involve common question of law in the context of common set of facts and thus they are being decided by a common order.

2. In the present bunch of petitions, the challenge is to the order passed by the State Transport Appellate Tribunal dated 07.07.2023.

3. Further, the challenge in the aforementioned order is by M/s Banda Bahadur Highways Pvt. Ltd., whose claim was considered for allotment of permit by the authorities but was not found meritorious enough to be granted the same which decision of the authorities has been upheld by the Tribunal. Certain facts may be noticed so that, the adjudication is done in a smooth manner

4. The respondent-State issued a public notice on 19.10.2021 inviting applications for allotment of permits for operating the buses. The issue in the present petition relates to the route mentioned in the Public Notice at Serial No.144 i.e. Ghaggar Bridge-Ludhiana via Rajpura, Sirhind, Gobindgarh, Khanna, Doraha and Sahnewal. On the said route, four regular stage carrier permits were to be granted to operate six return trips.

5. On the invitation of the applications for the aforementioned route, six applicants raised their claim for the grant of permit including the petitioners namely New Patiala Bus Service as well as M/s Banda Bahadur Highways Pvt. Ltd. After receiving the applications, the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) in its meeting held on 15.12.2021 decided that out of four permits to be issued, two permits will be given to the State Transport Undertaking and remaining two will be given to the private operators. While deciding the entitlement/claim, qua two permits which were to be given to the private operators, the said competent authority decided that one permit should be given to the existing operator and one should be given to the fresh(new entrant). By applying the said formula, after evaluating the claim of the respective claimants, the permits were allotted to one Sukhjinder Kaur as a new entrant and M/s New Patiala Bus Service was granted the permit under the existing operators.

6. Feeling aggrieved against the said decision by RTA, an appeal No.333 of 2022 was preferred by existing operator namely M/s Banda Bahadur Highways Pvt. Ltd. raising certain objections to the method of evaluation of the candidates was done qua the two permits to be filled from the private operators and one Subhash Kumar, who was also an new entrant but was not found entitled for the permit, also filed an appeal No.39 of 2023 before the Tribunal stating that he was better suited for the grant of permit.

7. Both the appeals came up for consideration before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal and were decided by two separate orders dated 07.07.2023. The appeal filed by one new entrant Subhash Kumar was accepted and the objection raised by him is that the benefit of permit in favour of New Patiala Bus Service has wrongly been given as, the said operator was not only tax defaulter but the application dated 18.11.2021 had been made by a person not authorised i.e application was filed by one Mr. Parminder Singh on behalf of company and permit authority letter is sanctioned in favour of Mr. Gurinder Singh who was not signatory to the application and self declaration which is not applicable in the eyes of law.

8. After accepting these two contentions, the permit in favour of the existing operator New Patiala Bus Service was cancelled by the Tribunal and the same was allotted