P L D (Rev (PLP)

H. A. MAJID.‑This appeal relates to an order which was passed by the Regional Transport Authority, Multan, during its meeting held on 23rd and 24th July 1955 relating to permits for plying stage' carriages on the Multan‑Head Palla via Mailsi route. Respondent No. 1 (The New Pakistan Transport Company Registered Multan) were allowed to ply stage carriages for the first time on the said route though the present appellant company (The Wahid Bus and. Mailsi Transport Company Limited) was already plying stage carriages on the same route up to Luddan. The appellant claims before me that the respondent should not have been allowed to enter on this business on the said route. The appellant claims that the respondent company has been shown unnecessary favours by the Regional Transport Authority. According to the appellant, one of these favours was that permits were sanctioned in their favour without ascertaining whether the company was registered or not. The application had initially been made by Respondent No. 1 in the name of New‑ Pakistan Transport Society Registered. The minutes of the Regional Transport Authority's meeting dated 23rd and 24th July 155 described the association as New Pakistan Transport Company Registered. The certificate of registration issued by the Registrar of Firms described the name of respondent No. 1 as New Pakistan Bus Service. The statement relating to registration was filed on 25th July 1955, i.e., two days after the meeting in which permits were issued to respondent No.

1. It is not known, however, on what date the Registrar had been initially approached by respondent No. 1 for registration. The counsel for respondent No. 1 has shown me another certificate of the Registrar, declaring that respondent No. 1 has changed the name to "New Pakistan Transport Society", and this certificate has been issued by the Registrar‑ to‑day. The above circumstances do not indicate that the Regional Transport Authority has unduly favoured respondent No.

1. The law does not require that an association should not be given a permit until it has already been registered. It is, however, clear that a permit can be suitably held only by a registered association, and I have no doubt that the' Regional Transport Authority in the present case must have made sure that respondent No. 1 was in the process of regis tration and that no difficulty in law would arise regarding their association with the transport business. The appellant company has raised objections on the ground that the statutory provisions of sections 57 and 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act have not been complied with before the permits in question were sanctioned. I have observed that the application on behalf of respondent No, 1 for stage carriage permits is dated 28th April 1955. The request for permits related to a large number of routes. This application was first published in the issue of the "Driver" dated 15th June 1955. The route in question was mentioned in that notice and the company's request regarding that route was described as "2 B parts". The notice also said that the applications would be taken into consideration in future meetings of the. Regional Transport Authority. The same paper contained in its issue of 13th July 1955 a notice to the effect that the Regional Transport Authority would be meeting 'on 23rd July 1955. A large number of routes and names of applicants were given in order to show what matters would be on the agenda of that meeting. The res pondent society's name was mentioned over a number of routes, but the route in question was not included in the list. It appears that the appellant company had written to the Regional Transport Authority after seeing the notice in the "Driver" of 15th June 1955, stating that they would like to be heard before the applications of the respondent society were determined. It does not appear that a specific notice was issued to the appellant company stating that their objections would be heard in the meeting scheduled for 23rd July 1955. The appellant company wants me to declare that the Regional Transport Authority was not justified in considering the application of the respondent society for stage carriage permits on the route in question at the said meeting and that if it did so, the decision should be set aside. I have considered the matter very carefully and have come to the conclusion that any lack of compliance with the statutory provisions of sections 57 and 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act was of a purely technical character in this case, and that it caused no prejudice to the appellant company. The notice in the "Driver" of 15th June 1955 published the particulars of the respondent society's applica tion and it is clear that the meeting, at which the applica tion was considered, was not held until more than 30 days had passed after the publication of that notice. The date of the meeting could not be mentioned in that notice because s the date had not been decided upon by that time. Later, on, a public notice was issued in the same paper mentioning the date of the meeting. There is no doubt that the agenda accompanying that notice suffered from the defect that the route in dispute did not appear as an item on the agenda. This omission was obviously inadvertent but it cannot vitiate the proceedings which the Regional Transport Authority took regarding the respondent society's application relating to the Multan‑Head Pallah via Mailsi route. This opinion of mine finds support in the fact that the appellant company appeared before the Regional Transport Authority on 23rd July 1955 and put in a typed application containing their objections to the grant of permits to the respondent society. There is no doubt that the minutes of the meeting contains a list of names purporting to be the names of the persons who objected against the grant of new permits. This list again inadvertently missed the name of the appellant company but the fact is not denied by the appellant company and I cannot attach too much weight to such omissions of technical nature. Another important feature of this case is that the minutes of the meeting relating to the present matter in dispute stated that the Regional Transport Authority had sanctioned 2 "B" part permits in favour of the respondent society. On 8th September 1955, the Regional Transport Authority issued intimation to the appellant company, among others, stating that in fact 4 "B" part permits had been issued to the respondent society on the Multan‑Head Palla via Mailsi route. The Secretary of the Regional Transport Authority has stated today that this intimation was issued on 8th September 1955 when it came to notice that the company had initially applied for four Return Trips on this route and the Chairman of the Authority had agreed that intimations should issue in this behalf. It appears further that the 2 "B" part permits issued to the respondent society were cancelled by a notification of the Provincial Government dated 20th September 1955. It was at a later date, viz., 27th October 1955, that Government restored those permits in favour of the respondent society. In the meantime, the Regional Transport Authority had passed an order on 8th October 1955 to which my attention has been specially drawn by the appellant company. This order took notice of the fact that Government had cancelled the permits which had been sanctioned in favour of the respondent society. The Authority, therefore, sanctioned some permits on some other routes in favour of that society and declared that the original order passed in the meeting of 23rd and 24th July 1955 should be considered to be modified accordingly. The appellant company now wants me to declare that the Autho rity had decided to abrogate the permits which had been sanctioned in July 1955. This argument cannot be accepted. The Authority must be assumed to have issued additional) permits on the said other routes on 8th October 1955 without declaring that the permits previously issued would become null and void even if the cancellation order passed by Government in relation to them was withdrawn. In these n circumstances, I declare that the "B" part permits, which were sanctioned in July 1955, in favour of the respondent society, were never cancelled by the Regional Transport Authority. I am, however, not favourably impressed by the action which the Regional Transport Authority had taken on 8th September 1955. The minutes recorded in July 1955, stated that two "B" part permits really sanctioned were four and not two. If they thought on that date that the minutes had been incorrectly recorded, they should have allowed the minutes to remain unchanged till the date of the next meeting of the Authority and they could have at that meeting requested the Authority to confirm the minutes subject to an alteration of the figure "2" to "4". This is particularly significant because the original notice issued in the "Driver" of 15th June 1955 had also described that the respondent society had asked for 2 "B" part permits on the Multan‑Head Palla route. If the office of the Authority thought that they had, made a mistake, they should have tried to rectify tha4 mistake by starting fresh proceedings regarding the two extra "B" part permits. In these circumstances, I am quite' clear that the two extra "B" part permits should not be allowed to be enjoyed by the respondent society at the present stage. The counsel for the respondent society has advanced an ingenious argument regarding these two extra "B" part permits. He says that the appellant company had come to know on 8th September 1955, that the Authority had given 4 "B" part permits to the respondent society and that the appellant company also knew that in their appeal lodged before the appellate authority on 2nd September 1955, they had attacked only two "B" part permits. The appellant company did not amend its grounds of appeal or lodge a fresh application before the appellate authority in order to explain that their attack was against all the permits and this omission, in the opinion of the respondent's counsel, takes away the right of the appellant company to seek any remedy from the appellate authority in respect of the two extra "B" part permits. This argument does not appeal to me. The appellant company lead not attacked any particular permits by referring to their number. They had attacked the decision of the Regional Transport Authority granting some permits to the respondent society on the route in question. The attack would cover all the permits allowed, whether their number was taken by the Authority to be two or four. Finally, I would deal with the appellant company's request for a declaration that no new permits should have been issued on this route, because the services already in existence on the route are adequate The argument proceeds on the ground that the Regional Transport Authority did not carry out any statistical observations or prepare any detailed report on the basis of observations regarding the volume of traffic on the route. It appears that some buses already run from Multan to Head Palla via Vihari. There is, how ever, no reason to think that the Multan‑Head Phalla route via Mailsi would be unpopular. It appears that there are no corridor restrictions on the Multan‑Vihari and Multan‑Mails routes. The permits already sanctioned in favour of the existing operators have been in existence for many years. There has been a considerable increase in the volume of traffic during the last few years and judicial notice can be taken of this increase. The counsel for the appellant company raises an objection regarding the two persons who constitute the respondent society, and he maintains that these two persons were related to, or connected in business with, one Hassan Raza who was already a big share‑holder in an existing transport company. The allegation regarding Shamshad Ali being connected in business with him is denied and in the absence of any evidence in support of it, I cannot but disregard the allegation. The fact, that Farhat Hussain is a son‑in‑law of the said Hassan Raza, does not mean that the former should not associate himself with a new transport company. As a result of the above considerations, I accept this appeal to the extent that the permits issued to the respondent society on tire Multan‑Head Palla route via Mailsi, shall consist of two "B" parts and not four. If the Regional Transport Authority is moved for the grant of fresh permits, instead of the two which I am quashing, it will have to start proceedings afresh by publishing the application and granting a public hearing to all the parties concerned as prescribed by law. A. H. Appeal partly accepted.