Rights under the previous Motor Vehicles Act are not preserved under the new Act when there is clear legislative intent to the contrary.

1.The petitioner is a Cooperative Society. The petitioner has approached this court praying for the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the orders Exts. P1 and P3 rejecting the claim of the petitioner for renewal of the permit to it on the route Kundara-Chinnakada for a period of five years from 23-12-1990. The petitioner was conducting the service on the said route on the basis of a regular permit which was valid upto 22-12-1990. When the permit was about to expire the petitioner made an application for renewal. The permit originally held by the petitioner was under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. By the time the petitioner applied for renewal, 1939 Act had been replaced by Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The route in question was of 22 Kms. The first respondent RTA rejected the application in its view that the permit granted under the 1939 Act cannot be renewed under the Act of 1988. It was observed that the applicant had to make an application for a fresh permit under the 1988 Act. On appeal by the petitioner the Stale Transport Appellate Tribunal, respondent No. 3 herein following the decision reported in K.S. Krishnadas v. R.TA. Palakkad (O.P. 1080 of 1990) held that application filed for renewal under the 1988 Act of a permit obtained under the provisions of the 1939 Act is not maintainable. The State Transport Appellate Tribunal also took note of the fact that an appeal was pending against the decision in O.P. No. 1080 of 1990. The State Transport Appellate Tribunal took the view that the fact that an appeal was pending would not enable that authority to ignore the ratio of the decision in O.P. No. 1080 of 1990. It is this view of the State Transport Appellate Tribunal that is challenged by the petitioner in this Original Petition.

2. Respondent No. 4, claiming that he was a rival applicant for permit in this route got himself impleaded in this Original Petition subsequently and has pressed for a hearing of this Original Petition. That was the reason why this Original Petition itself was taken up for hearing with the consent of parties when C.M.P. No. 3868 of 1991 came up for hearing.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner points out that W.A. No. 34 of 1991 was allowed by a Division Bench of this court to contend that the renewal of a permit issued under the 1939 Motor Vehicles Act is possible under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The said decision is reported in Krishnadas v. STAT Ernakulam (1991 (2) KLT 203). The learned counsel for the petitioner also relied on the decision reported in M/s.Gurucharan Singh v. Yashwant Singh (AIR 1992 SC 180) to contend that the rights which the petitioner had under the 1939 Act are preserved by the transitory provision in the 1988 Act and that there is nothing in the 1988 Act to destroy the entitlement of the petitioner for renewal of the permit. It is also pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioner that when the order Ext. P1 was passed by the first respondent R.T.A. a Cooperative Society could have had only ten permits. It is pointed out that by amending S.71 of the Act the number of permits a Cooperative Society can have has been enhanced to 50 in number. It is submitted that the petitioner society has only 13 or 14 permits and that therefore there was no prohibition in the permit being renewed in terms of S.71 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

4. The learned counsel for the 4th respondent on the other hand submits that by virtue of the proviso to S.71(1) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 no permit for a route of 50 Km or less can be granted to a Cooperative Society like the petitioner. According to him therefore the proviso to S.71 of the Act clearly manifests an intention contrary to the one contained in the 1939 Act and that ther