( 1 ) THIS writ petition and two others, namely, Smt. Durga Devi v. Regional Transport Authority, Gwalior, (Misc. Petn. No. 229 of 1969) and Rameshwar Dayal v. The Regional Transport Authority, Gwalior (Misc. Petn. No. 250 of 1969), have been placed for disposal before us because certain earlier Division Bench decisions of this Court in regard to the procedure to be adopted for grant of stage carriage permits under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter mentioned as the Act) in regard to a new route required reconsideration in view of the decision of the supreme Court in R. O. Naidu v. Addl. State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Madras, air 1969 SC 1130. This order shall dispose of the three petitions.

( 2 ) THE facts giving rise to these three petitions are these. In this case, the respondent 2 Ramgopal, who was an existing operator of a stage carriage on the katni-Beohari route (92 miles) applied on August 13, 1965 for extension of that route upto Sidhi (another 52 miles), While this application was pending, Ramgopal applied for and secured renewal of this permit for the Katni-Beohari route on May 3, 1966. Long afterwards, on January 1, 1969, when the application for extension was taken up for consideration, the Regional Tran- sport Authority declined to consider the petitioner's objections on the ground that he had not made any representation when that application was published in 1965. The extension was actually granted on February 14, 1969 and the extended permit was renewed on december 31, 1969. In this connection, it may be mentioned that the petitioner had secured on February 18, 1967 a stage carriage permit for Sidhi-Beohar-Shahdol route in lieu of renewal of another permit but that grant was set aside in appeal and a writ petition, being Miscellaneous Petition No. 253 of 1967, filed against the appellate order was dismissed on May 1, 1969.

( 3 ) IN Miscellaneous Petition No. 229 of 1969, the petitioner had, on February 6, 1969, applied for a stage carriage permit for a new route, Gwalior-Daboh route. The Regional Transport Authority did not publish that application and instead invited, by a notification dated May 9, 1969, fresh applications for the ruote. The petitioner has called in question the validity of this procedure by which the consideration of an application already made was not taken up and instead fresh applications were invited for the route.

( 4 ) IN Miscellaneous Petition No. 250 of 1969 also, the Regional Transport authority, Gwalior, invited, by the aforesaid notification dated May 9, 1969, fresh applications for the new Daboh-Gwalior route instead of taking up, in the usual way, consideration of the petitioner's application for the route which he had earlier made on November 20, 1968.

( 5 ) THE main question for consideration is whether, on an application being made for a new route, for which no order had been passed under Section 47 (3) of the act, the Regional Transport Authority is bound to proceed to consider that application in the manner provided by Section 57 of the Act without inviting other applications. In Rameshwar v. Regional Transport Authority, 1969 MPLJ 894 a division Bench of this Court held that, after the Regional Transport Authority had decided under Section 47 (3) of the Act to increase the number of permits for certain routes, it acted properly in inviting fresh applications instead of proceeding with those that had been filed earlier. It is true that the routes in this case were not new ones but the number of permits to be granted for each of these routes had been fixed earlier. There was, therefore, not much difference in principle between the two. On the other hand, in several cases decided by this Court earlier, it was hold that, when an application was made for a new route, the regional Transport Authority was bound to proceed with that application under section 57 of the Act and it could neither defer consideration of that application nor invite fresh applicatio