The Regional Transport Authority has the power to impose a condition on a stage carriage permit that the service shall be run with a stage carriage of a particular year of manufacture.

( 1 ) THIS order will also govern Miscellaneous Petition No. 95 of 1963.

( 2 ) THE petitioner Sheelchand and Co. 's application for the grant of a stage carriage permit for Shujalpur-Bhopal route was rejected by the Regional Transport authority, Bhopal. It was, however, granted in. appeal by the' State Transport appellate Authority. While granting the permit applied for, the Appellate Authority made it conditional on the petitioner putting up a bus of 1962 model on the route. The other petitioner Suganchand Sheelchand and Company's application for the grant of a stage carriage permit for Sironj-Bhopal route was also similarly granted by the State Transport Appellate Authority and on the same condition. Both the petitioners now challenge the validity of the conditions attached to their permits, and pray for the issue of writs of certiorari for quashing them.

( 3 ) IT was argued by Shri Sen, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners, that each of the petitioners had been granted "p. St. S. " permit and not "p. St. P. " permit; that while on a "p. St. P. " permit, in relation to a particular stage carriage a condition of the year of manufacture of the vehicle could be imposed, no such condition could be attached to a "p. St. S. " permit which entitled the holder of the permit, to use any of his vehicles without any qualification and that the condition imposed by the Appellate Authority while granting the permits was not any of the conditions enumerated in Clauses (i) to (xxii) of Section 48 (3) of the Motor vehicles Act, 1939, (hereinafter referred to as the Act), nor was it any "prescribed condition" falling under Clause (xxiii) of the said provision. Learned counsel proceeded to say that even Form-G of 'certificate of Registration given in Schedule i to the Act did not require any vehicle to be specified by the year of its manufacture and that the Rules under the Act did not also lay down such specification of stage carriages. In support of his argument, learned counsel relied on Mangilal v. Appellate Tribunal of State Transport Authority, AIR 1957 Raj 167.

( 4 ) IN our judgment, both these petitions must be dismissed. Section 48 (3) of the act runs thus

"48. (3) The Regional Transport Authority, if it decides to grant a stage carriage permit, may grant the permit for a service of stage carriages of a specified description or for one or more particular stage carriages, and may, subject to any rules that may be made under this Act, attach to the permit any one or more of the following conditions, namely : x x X X x"

Then follow Clauses (i) to (xxii) enumerating the conditions which may be attached to a permit. Clause (xxiii) gives to the Regional Transport Authority the authority to attach "any other conditions which may be prescribed. " It is quite true that Clauses (i) to (xxii) do not speak of the condition of a stage carriage, for which a permit has been granted, being of a particular year of manufacture. No such condition has also been prescribed by the Rules made under the Act. But the regional Transport Authority's power to make the grant of a permit for the service of a stage carriage conditional on the vehicle to be used being a particular year of manufacture flows not from any of the clauses of Sub-section (3) of Section 48 enumerating the conditions that may be attached, but from the substantive provision of Sub-section (3) itself. That sub-section says that the Regional transport Authority may grant a permit for the service of stage carriages of a specified description. If the stage carriage for which a permit can be granted has to be of a "specified description", then it follows that the Regional Transport authority has the power to say that the stage carriage for which a permit has been granted shall be of a particular year of manufacture. The specific description of a stage carriage is not confined to its class, name, maker, number of cylinders or horse-power, but also includes the year of manufactu