The right of appeal against the refusal to grant a permit under S. 89 (1) (a) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 is not barred by the absence of a right to challenge the grant of a permit.

( 1 ) THE petitioner carries on business of plying of passengers buses. During the course of his business he had applied for grant of temporary permit on the Rajgarh-Bakani inter State route on which a vacancy for making two single trips daily to be operated by one bus had occurred. Respondent No. 3 had also applied for temporary permit in the same vacancy. The petitioner's application was dated 9-6-1992 and that of the respondent No. 3 was dated 11-6-1992. The applications were heard by the State Transport Authority and were disposed of by a common order dated 26-6-1992, granting temporary permit to respondent No. 3 and rejecting the - application of the petitioner. Against this order an appeal before the S. T. A. T. under S. 89 (1) (a) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 was filed by the petitioner. The appeal was also dismissed, firstly on the ground that under the New Act grant of permit to rival claimaint could not be challenged in an appeal and secondly that the equity was not in favour of the petitioner as he had ten other stage carriage permits and 3-4 temporary permits already in his pocket. Against this decision, the present petition has been filed.

( 2 ) SHRI G. M. Chaphekar, the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted relying on the decision in Ram Gopal v. Anant Prasad, AIR 1959 SC 851 that whenever an order granting a permit results in refusing it to another person, appeal against refusal to grant permit is maintainable though consequentially grant of permit is also under challenge.

( 3 ) SHRI R. G. Waghamare, the learned senior counsel appearing for the respondent No. 3 submitted that 5. 89 of the New Act creates a complete bar against any appeal challenging grant of permit to anyone. He submitted that Ram Gopal's case (supra) was decided in view of S. 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act (old) and the position in law has changed. The learned counsel also relied on several decisions including AIR 1992 SC 443, AIR 1987 SC 117, AIR 1988 SC 184 and AIR 1965 SC 107, in support of his contention that jurisdiction under Art. 227 of the Constitution of India is limited one and when the Tribunal has based its judgement on merits on sound reasoning and has refused grant of permit to the petitioner as it will result in a monopoly, there is no scope for interference by this Court in its supervisory jurisdiction under Art. 227 of the Constitution of India.

( 4 ) LET us first deal with the point as to the maintainability of the appeal before the S. T. A. T. Comparison of S. 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act of 1939 with S. 89 of the New Act would shown that there is no substantial difference in the language of the Sections. The contention of Shri R. G. Waghamare that the legal position has changed has, therefore, no force. Like the 1988 Act the 1939 Act also permitted appeal only against refusal to grant of permits and not against grant of permit except under Cl. (f ). This simply means that right of appeal was not available to a stranger who had no stake in the matter and who had not suffered deprival of grant of permit. Where a grant of permit to one results in refusal of permit to another, there is nothing in S. 89 of the Act or in any of the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 and there was nothing in S. 64 of the 1939 Act to take away the right of a person to challenge the refusal of permit to him even if consequentially the challenge is to the grant of permit to another.

( 5 ) THE Supreme Court in Ram Gopal's case (supra) though in a slightly different setting while dealing with S. 64 of the old Act, has held that the different clauses in S. 64 deal with different situations. Each is independent of the others. One clause does not affect the right of appeal under the other clauses. If an appeal lies under any of the clauses, it has to be an effective appeal and the appellate authority must have all the powers to give the relief to which the appellant is found entitled. In that case, the Sup