IMPORTANT POINT
For an enclave route the counter signature of other State is not required and there is no need for a reciprocal agreement. Petition allowed.

H.N. Nagamohan Das, J.—In these writ petitions the petitioners have prayed for a writ in the nature of certiorari to quash the orders passed by the Karnataka State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Bangalore (for short, ‘Tribunal’) and the details are as under:

2. Petitioners are the holders of stage carriage permits operating trips on inter-State routes and both the terminals of the routes are in the State of Karnataka and the length of routes in other States is less than 16 kms. The contesting respondents in these writ petitions questioned these permits in favour of the petitioners and assignment of timings before the Tribunal in different revision petitions as stated above. The Tribunal after hearing both the parties, passed the impugned orders holding that the permits in question are inter-State permits and they are not included in the inter-State agreement between the two States and as such the transport authority has no jurisdiction to grant the permits. Accordingly, the Tribunal allowed the revision petitions and set aside the permits granted in favour of the petitioners. Hence, these writ petitions.

3. Heard arguments on both the sides and perused the entire writ papers.

4. Section 88 in Chapter V of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 deals with the validation of permits for the use outside region in which ‘it was granted. The second proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 88 deals with nature of permits in these writ petitions. It is useful to extract the same:

W.P. Nos. Impugned order in Date of Annexure

Revision Petition Nos. Order

28024, 28123 and 1060, 1066 and 1067 of 18.8.2009 A

28124 of 2009 2006

29721 of 2009 130 of 2008 24.9.2009 C

2670 of 2008 636, 637, 638 of 2007, 9 2.2.2008 C

of 2008 and 1473 of 2007

19566 of 2007 760, 761, 762, 1000; 764 5.11.2007 E

and 763 of 2007

19843 of 2007 756, 757, 758, 759, 776 5.11.2007 E and 777 of 2007

“88. Validation of permits for use outside region in which granted—(1) Except as may be otherwise prescribed, a permit granted by the Regional Transport Authority of anyone region shall not be valid in any other region, unless the permit has been countersigned by the Regional Transport Authority of that other region, and a permit granted in any one State shall not be valid in any other State unless, countersigned by the State Transport Authority of that other State or by the Regional Transport Authority concerned:

Provided....

Provided further that, where both starting point and the terminal point of a route are situate within the same State, but part of such route lies in any other State and the length of such part does not exceed sixteen kilometers, the permits shall be valid in the other State in respect of that part of the route which is in that other State notwithstanding that such permit has not been countersigned by the State Transport Authority or the Regional Transport Authority of that other State.”

5. A reading of sub-section (1) of Section 88 and the proviso contained therein specifies the following three categories of routes:

(i) A route which originates in one State and runs through one or more other States and the terminal point of such route situate in another State.

(ii) Both starting point and the terminal point of a route are situate within the same State but the length of the route lies in another State or States is more than 16 kms.

(iii) Both the starting point and the terminal point of a route are situate within the same State but the length of such route lie in any other State is less than 16 kms.

6. The Supreme Court in K. Venkamma v Government of Andhra of Pradesh and Others AIR 1977 SC 1170: 1977 (3) SCC 36, held that the routes specified above are inter-State permits. The route specified in category 3 stated above is an inter-State route and the same is popularly called as Enclave route. The first two categories of inter-State permits as stated above requires counter signature of other State or States. Insofar as it relates to enclave route, the c