P L D 1961 (W (PLP)

2. The plaintiff company thereupon filed an appeal before the Additional District Judge, Jhang, on the 26th (?) of October 1960, against the refusal to grant a temporary injunction. The Additional District Judge granted a temporary injunction on the 30th of November 1960 to the effect that the plaintiff company may be allowed to ply its buses on the route until the decision of the application by the Regional Transport Authority on the following grounds :‑ I find that it is a fit case in which the petitioner should be allowed to ply his. buses on Jhang‑Ahmadpur Sial route till the disposal of appeal. * * * *It is conceded by Mr. Bashir Ahmad that the application of the petitioner for grant of route permit is still , pending with the Regional Transport Authority and it has not been rejected. The petitioner was the previous grantee of the temporary route permits which expired on 16‑10‑1960 and his application for grant of route permits after 16‑10‑1960 is still pending and in case the petitioner is not allowed to ply his buses during this period he is likely to suffer irreparable loss even if the route permit is granted to him after 16‑10‑1960. Mr. Bashir Ahmad, Assistant, representing the respondent, has taken up no objection."

3. The Pakistan Transport Company Limited was not made a party or heard when the above order was made. They have come up in revision against the above order and pray that it may be set aside.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner urges that as the plaintiff company had not put in any application for grant of a route permit under section 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act, but had only been issued temporary permits for three months, under section 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, to meet a temporary need, which no longer existed, and as the temporary route permits could not be renewed under the Act for four months, which the plaintiff company applied for, the plaintiff company had no case for grant of a temporary injunction, even if their application for extension had not been disposed of. It is contended that though fresh temporary route permits in case of temporary need could have been issued, this was not claimed by the plaintiff company, and as the Regional Transport Authority had not granted it any route permits, the order of the Additional District Judge is tantamount to his granting the plaintiff company two route permits, although he had no such power, and his order is thus illegal and without jurisdiction. The argument is that in the garb of granting a temporary injunction the Additional District Judge has conferred on the plaintiff company two route permits, and though the order authorises the plying of two buses until the Regional Transport Authority can decide the application of the plaintiff company, the grant is for an indefinite period, which may well extend even beyond the period of four months, for which temporary injunction was prayed for, or for which the Regional Transport Authority could grant temporary route permits. Learned counsel for the Shorkot Transport Company replies that the plaintiff company has a good prima facie case or at least an arguable case before the Court, and the Additional District Judge was fully competent ,to make the impugned order, which suffers from no legal flaw, and should not be set aside, for it would otherwise mean a dismissal of the suit.

5. Since this is a revision under section 115, Civil Procedure Code, I can only interfere with and set aside t4he order of the Additional District Judge if he has acted illegally or with material irregularity in the exercise of his jurisdiction.

6. The trial Judge gave weighty reasons for his refusal to issue the temporary injunction prayed for, but the learned Additional District Judge did not notice them. Unfortunately the Regional Transport Authority was not represented before him (for Mr. Bashir Muhammad was not a duly constituted agent) and did not contest the application. He was mainly influenced by the fact that the application of the plaintiff company had not been disposed of by the Regional Transport Authority and irreparable loss was likely to be caused to it, without considering whether the application was validly made under the Act and could be allowed by the Regional Transport Authority and whether the plaintiff company had a legal right to demand and obtain the route permits and a Civil Court could interfere, when a breach of the provisions of the Act had not been alleged, and no effort had been made to obtain relief under the Act by recourse to the machinery provided thereunder.

7. Under section 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act, the Regional Transport Authority may, in its discretion and without following the procedure laid down under section 57, grant permits to be effective for a limited period, not in any case to exceed four months, to authorise the use of transport vehicles temporarily to meet a particular temporary need under clause (c) or for conveyance on special occasions specified in clause (a) or for seasonal business under clause (b). This is the ' section under which the plaintiff company had been granted two temporary route permits for three months valid up to the 18th of October 1960. A plain reading of this section makes it clear that a temporary permit cannot be issued for more than four months, and there is no provision in the Motor Vehicles Act, which authorises its renewal: A fresh grant of a temporary permit up to a period of four months can be made under section 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act to meet a temporary need, but no such application had been made by the plaintiff company. The appli cation by the plaintiff company was for renewal of the two permits for four months, but there is no provision in the Act for renewal of temporary permits. In fact if a temporary permit is to last beyond four months, it would be contrary to‑the provisions 1B of section 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act. It is obvious, there fore, that such an application was riot contemplated by the Act and could not have been granted by the Regional Transport Authority.. Its pendency, therefore, afforded no ground for grant of a temporary injunction. The period of three months for which the .temporary route permits had been issued to the plaintiff company had expired, and no case of irreparable loss to the company existed. Thus the only ground on which the temporary injunction was granted was no ground at all for its issue.

8. Under section 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act, it is expressly in the discretion of the Regional Transport Authority to grant a temporary route permit. The grant of a route permit depends upon the existence of a temporary need, and the Regional Transport Authority has to determine the existence of the; need, and the number of route permits to be issued to meet that need. In this connection it has been argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the temporary need, which had necessitated the issue of two temporary permits in favour of the plaintiff company no longer existed, and there was, there fore, no question of issue of further route permits, and that is why the Regional Transport Authority did not consider it necessary to decide the application of the plaintiff company. It is explained that as the order granting two route permits by the Regional Transport Authority in favour of Amir Transport Company, had been stayed by the Board of Revenue in the appeal filed by the Pakistan Transport Company, the Regional Transport Authority had found it necessary to issue two temporary permits to the plaintiff company, and since the Regional Transport Authority, after the decision of the appeal had issued two route permits to the Muzaffargarh District Bus Service, no temporary need existed any longer, and no question of grant of temporary permits remained. The argument is not without force. What is, however, important is that the Regional Transport‑ Authority not having felt the necessity of issuing temporary permits, could the learned Additional District Judge decide whether the need for issue of a temporary route permit existed and exercise a discretion, which, under the Act, is vested in the Regional D Transport Authority ? Since the Act confers an unfettered discretion on the Regional Transport Authority to grant a temporary route permit, the discretion cannot be exercised by Civil Court, and no person has a right to demand the issue of temporary route permit, even in a case in which a temporary route permit had been issued to him under section 62' of the Act, which creates no vested interest or a claim for issue of a further temporary route permit.

9. Subsection (1) of section 42 of the :Motor Vehicles Act provides that no owner of a transport vehicle shall use or permit the use of the vehicle in any public place save in accordance with the conditions of a permit granted or a countersigned by i Regional or Provincial Transport Authority authorising the use of the vehicle in that place in the manner in which the vehicle is being used. No person can, therefore, ply a transport vehicle on public roads without the necessary route permit issued by the Regional Transport Authority. There is, therefore, no legal right in any one without the possession of a route permit to run a bus on a public road. The plaintiff company did not possess a route permit for plying its buses after the 18th of October 1960 and had, therefore no authority or legal right to ply its buses on the route. The trial Judge had, therefore, rightly concluded that the plaintiff company could not be allowed to ply its buses and that he did not see any ground to restrain the respondent from exercising its discretion in the grant or withholding of the permits to the plaintiff company. This was a forceful ground for refusal to grant the injunction prayed for. The contention is not thus without force that the temporary injunction granted to the plaintiff company authorising the running of buses on the roads in the circumstances of this case amounts to a grant of two temporary route permits in the garb of a temporary injunction. The Additional District Judge expressly allowed the plaintiff company to ply its buses, and he in effect exercised a power not vested in him, but vested in the Regional Transport Authority.

10. Learned counsel for the plaintiff company conceded that the plaintiff company had made no application for grant of a route permit under section 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act. He, however, relied on subsection (2) of section 58 of the Motor Vehicles Act and contended that the application of'. the plaintiff company had to be given preference by the Regional Transport Authority and the learned District Judge was justified in granting a temporary injunction. Subsection (2) of section 58 of the Act provides as follows :‑ "A permit may be renewed on an application made and disposed of as if it were an application for a permit Provided that, other conditions being equal, an application for renewal shall be given preference over new applications for permits." It is obvious that subsection (2) of section 58 relates to applica tions made under section 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act and not to applications under section 62 of the Act. Section 58 deals with a permit other than a temporary route permit issued under section 62 and subsection (2) of section 58 has no application to temporary route permits. It has been shown already that the plaintiff company's application did not fall under section 62 of the Act, was not an application under the Act and that the application for renewal of temporary route permits could not be granted by the Regional Transport Authority. Thus sub section (2) of section 58 of the Act is of no avail to the plaintiff company. Since the company had not made an application under section 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act; it is not necessary to examine the case in the light of section 58 of the Act.

11. The trial Court stated that the plaintiff company had not alleged contravention of any provision of the Motor Vehicles Act by the Regional Transport Authority. The learned Additional District Judge entirely ignored this aspect of the case and did not consider whether the plaintiff company had made out a prima facie case for issue . of a temporary permit. It is not to be forgotten in this context that the issue of route permit is governed by, the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, which provides the necessary machinery for obtaining relief by a person, who is aggrieved by an order of the Regional Transport Authority. Civil Courts should not encourage parties seeking route permits to rush to them‑for relief without availing themselves of the remedy provided by the statue. In this connection reference may be made to the observations of the Supreme Court G of Pakistan in The Tariq Transport Company Lahore v. The Sargodha‑Bhera Bus Service, Sargodha (P L D 1958 S C (Pak.) 439) a case under the Motor Vehicles Act, to the effect that it should be borne in mind that where a statute creates a right and also provides a machinery for the enforcement of that right, the party complaining of a breach of the statute must first avail himself of the remedy ` provided by the 'statute for such a breach.

12. For the reasons recorded above, the Additional District Judge acted with material irregularity, if not illegality., in the exercise of his jurisdiction, in making his order, which in effect grants two route permits to the plaintiff company, in the garb of a temporary injunction, and he had no such power. He is not an appellate a9thority and his order is not authorised by the Motor Vehicles Act. No illegality or breach of the provisions of the Act was even alleged and he should not have interfered with the discretion exercised by the trial Court refusing to grant a temporary injunction. No case for grant of a temporary injunction was made out and no question of irreparable loss to the plaintiff company arose, because the company was granted temporary route permits for three months and this period had run out, and no vested or legal right of theirs was adversely affected. The petition for revision is, therefore, accepted with costs, and the order of the Additional District Judge is set aside. Petition accepted.