P L D 1958 (W (PLP)

"(ii) The ground or grounds on which any application is granted and objections thereto turned down, must be disclos ed to the person concerned. In the present case the present petitioners were never apprised of the merits of the case of Respondent No. 2 or the grounds on which permits were granted to them. (iii) Under directions issued by the Provincial Transport Authority, under section 44 of the Motor Vehicles Act, it was necessary for Respondent No. 1 to conduct a proper survey of the route concerned before taking decision regarding the grant of fresh permits. This directive was wholly ignored evidently because the Respondent No. 1 knew that compliance therewith would force its hands to reject the application of Respondent No. 2 which it had made up its mind to grant irrespective of the merits."

11. On the 17th of September 1957, when Writ Petition No. 815 came up before this bench, Mr. M. Anwar, Assistant Advocate‑General, made a request on behalf of the Provincial Transport Authority that this petition be heard along with Writ Petition No. 923, in which the Provincial Transport Authority was a party because, according to his instructions, there were serious irregularities committed by the Authority on the relevant dates and there were even suggestions of forgery of the records in those dates. In view of these statements by the learned Assistant Advocate‑General, we impleaded the Provincial Transport Authority as a party to Writ Petition No. 815 and ordered that this be heard along with Writ Petition No.

923. The Provincial Transport Authority filed written statements on the 19th of September 1957, in both these petitions in which the aforementioned allegations were further amplified. In view of their serious nature, which reflected on the conduct of the Authority as a whole and of Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema, in particular, we permitted the latter to put in a written state ment on his behalf and join the proceedings, although he had already been replaced by Mr. Sadiq Ali Shah. In their written statements, the Tariq Transport Company, the Authority and Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema, denied the allegations of numerous illegalities and irregularities made in Writ Petition No. 815 and by the Provincial Transport Authority. It was claimed on their behalf that the pro ceedings of the impugned meeting were conducted strictly in accordance with law and that this Court had no juris diction to interfere with the grant of stage carriage permits, in exercise of writ jurisdiction. The Tariq Transport Company further pleaded that the application of the Tariq Transport Company, 69, The Mall Lahore, which included Sargodha‑Bhera route published in the "Driver" of the 22nd of May 1957 and "Rah‑o‑Manzil" of the 27th of May 1957 was not made by or on their behalf and that they were granted stage carriage permits on Sargodha‑Bhera route by cutting short the Rabwah‑Bhera route for which they had originally applied and which application of theirs had been duly published in the "Driver" of the 24th of October 1956.

12. The respective contentions of the parties gave rise to the following questions for determination:‑ (1) Whether the application of the Tariq Transport Company (respondent No. 2 in Writ Petition No. 815) for the grant of stage carriage permits on Sargodha‑Bhera route was properly considered at the meeting of the Authority held on 27th to 29th of May 1957. (2) Whether the procedure adopted for the hearing of the application for grant of stage carriage permits including the application of respondent No. 2 was in breach of the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act or the general principles governing procedure of judicial and quasi‑judicial tribunals. (3) Whether decisions of these applications were taken in accordance with the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and the rules framed thereunder or they were based on private opinion of the members of the Authority. (4) What was the effect of Mr. Allah Dad's participation in the deliberations of the Authority on the 29th of May 1957, while taking decisions on the applications for grant of stage carriage permits, and (5) Whether the Sargodha‑Bhera Bus Service (petitioners in Writ Petition No. 815) had the locus standi to object to the grant of stage carriage permits to the Tariq Transport Company (respondent No. 2 in Writ Petition No. 815). Since the position taken up by the Authority on certain material points in the case was contrary to the minutes of the meeting of the 27th to 29th May 1957, and a number of documents summoned by this Court and the petitioners, were not available in the record of the Authority, we con sidered it a fit case to allow the parties to lead evidence in support of their respective contentions.

13. In Writ Petition No. 815, the petitioners examined only one witness, namely, Mr. Aziz Ahmad, Secretary, West Pakistan Transport Federation, in addition to Mr. Muhammad Iqbal Piracha, its General Manager. The Provincial Transport Authority (respondent No. 3), examined Mr. Siraj‑ud‑Din, steno‑typist of the office of the Secretary of the Authority. Mr. Abu Zafar, Additional Inspector‑General of Police, the member of the Provincial Transport Authority, Syed Inayat Ali Shah, Deputy Inspector‑General of Police, C. I. D., Lahore, Mr. Waliullah Khan, Secretary, Provincial Transport Authority and A. I. G., Traffic, Mr. Ghulam Niazi, Inspector of Police and Mr. Iftikhar Ali, District Manager, Lahore Omnibus Service. Mr. Sharif Khan, the Provincial Transport Controller, also appeared in the witness‑box in support of the allegations made against the Authority and was cross- examined by the respondents at length. Respondent No. 2 examined only one of its partners, namely, Mr. Munir Ahmad. The Authority examined Mr. Barkhurdar Khan, Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema, and Mr. Allah Dad, a non‑official member, ex‑secretary and Chairman of the Authority respectively. Mr. Ihsan‑ul‑Haq Siddiqui, Head Assistant, Provincial Transport Controller's Office, Mr. Sharif Khan, the Provincial Transport Controller, Mr. Abdul Aziz, the bailiff of this Court, Qazi Abdur Rahman, Assailant in the office of the Authority, Mr. Muhammad Iqbal Piracha, (petitioner in Writ Petition No. 815), and Mr. F. A. Siddiqui, P. A. to Commissioner, Lahore, were examined by us as Court‑witnesses. Besides the oral testimony of the aforesaid witnesses, a large number of documents were exhibited on the record, to which reference will be made hereinafter

14. The evidence led by Sargodha‑Bhera Bus Service (petitioners in Writ Petition No. 815) was intended to make out:‑ (1) That the application of the Tariq Transport Company (respondent No. 2) for grant of stage carriage permits dated 25th September 1956, Exh. P. 2 did not include the Sargodha‑Bhera route and that this route was subsequently included in it by replacing the list of route permits applied for by the said respondent attached to their application. (2) That as required by section 57 (3) of the Act, no notice of any such application was given and consequently even if this route was included in the application Exh. P. 2, the Authority could not have considered it at its meeting held on the 27th to 29th of May 1957. (3) That the procedure adopted for consideration of applications for grant of stage carriage permits at the said meeting was in breach of the provisions of the Act and rules framed thereunder inasmuch as the applicants and the objectors were not heard by the Authority in presence of each other. (4) That certain forgeries were committed in the record of the Authority relating to the impugned meeting, and (5) That stage carriage permits were not granted on the merits of each case as required by the provisions of section 47 of the Act and that the decision of the Authority in granting such permits was based on private recom mendations of the members of the Authority. In case of respondent No. 2 it was suggested that their case was decided on the basis of favouritism because its Managing Partner, Mr. Munir Ahmad, was the brother of a high officer in the Government of West Pakistan.

15. The evidence led on behalf of the Provincial Transport Authority was directed towards bringing out:‑ (1) Irregularities and illegalities committed by the Authority, at the meeting in question and some earlier meetings in respect of grant of stage carriage, public carrier and motor‑rickshaw permits. (2) Directions given by the Provincial Transport Authority under section 44 of the Act regarding issue of stage carriage permits were deliberately ignored by the Authority. (3) That the members of the Authority, granted stage carriage permits on the basis of private recommendations of its members which amounted to malpractice and was likely to encourage corruption in the functioning of the Authority, (4) That the record of the Authority relating to the meeting of the 27th to the 29th May 1957. was tampered with and that the forwarding letter from Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema to Mr. Allah Dad dated the 11th of June 1957, was removed from the record of this Court and replaced by Exh. R. 2.

16. In denial of these allegations, Tariq Transport Company (respondent No. 2), as mentioned earlier, contented themselves by producing only its Managing Partner Mr. Munir Ahmad, who himself had not attended the meeting of the Authority dated 27th to 29th of May 1957. The gist of his testimony was that the application of the Tariq Transport Company, 69, The Mall, Lahore, for grant of stage carriage permits published in the "Driver" of 22nd of May and "Rah‑o- Manzil" of the 27th of May 1957 did not pertain to respondent No. 2 and that in their application Exh. P. 2, they had applied for thirteen routes including Sargodha‑Bhera. The evidence led by the Authority purported to make out that the proceedings of its meeting held on the 27th to 29th of May 1957, were in accord with the provisions of the Act and that the record of its proceedings respect of the said meeting was in no manner tampered with. Contrary to the minutes of the meeting, it was claimed that the applicants for stage carriage permits and the objectors were heard in the presence of one another and that decisions of these applications were taken by unanimous vote according to the merits of each case. Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema, did not lead any evidence and, as mentioned above, he was examined as a witness on behalf of the Authority. He denied all the allegations made against him and the Authority by the petitioners in Writ Petition No. 815 and the Provincial Transport Authority.

17. We now proceed to take up the questions, which fall for decision, in this case ad seriatim (1) Section 57 (3) of the Act provides:‑ "On receipt of an application for a stage carriage permit or a public carrier's permit, the Regional Transport Authority shall make the application available for inspec tion at the office of the Authority and shall publish the application or the substance thereof in the prescribed manner together with a notice of the date before which representations in connection therewith may be submitted and the date, not being less than thirty days from such publication on which, and the time and place at which, the application and any representations received will be considered." Now it was not denied on behalf of respondent No. 2 that their application for Sargodha‑Bhera route was not published before the meeting of the Authority, held on the 27th to the 29th of May 1957. But it was urged that inasmuch as respondent No. 2 had applied for six stage carriage permits on Rabwah‑Bhera route and that application had been duly published in the "Driver" of the 24th October 1956, it was open to the Authority to cut short that route under rule 4.8 (2) of the Punjab Motor Vehicles, Rules, 1940, and grant permits for Sargodha‑Bhera route as was done in this case. In the agenda of the meeting in question, against the application of the Tariq Transport Company (respondent No. 2), Rabwah -Bhera and Sargodha‑Bhera routes are mentioned separately at No.

166. It is, therefore, reasonable to infer that in granting stage carriage permits on Sargodha‑Bhera route, the Authority did not purport to cut down the Rabwah‑Bbera route. The minutes of the meeting also do not contain any such suggestion. Further those members of the authority, who appeared before us, stated that the applications, which were not granted, were impliedly rejected. In view of this, the application of the Tariq Transport Company for Rabwah -Bhera route shall be deemed to have been rejected rather than allowed in a modified form. The publication of respondent No. 2's application in the "Driver" of the 24th October 1956, is also of no avail because the date, time and place, at which the authority was to consider it, was not mentioned in it. Between October 1956 and May 1957, the Authority fixed a number of meetings and gave notices of them by publication but in none of them the list of applicants for stage carriage permits was published. It, therefore, follows that the application of the Tariq Transport Company for grant of stage carriage permits on Sargodha‑Bhera route could not have been legally taken up for consideration at the meeting of the 27th to the 29th of May 1957.

18. Procedure adopted for hearing of applications for grant of stage carriage permits.‑It will be recalled that the agenda of the meeting for the 27th to the 29th of May 1957 for grant of stage carriage permits was drawn up district‑wise, i.e. the applicants of each one of the ten districts were listed separately although the routes for which they had applied were not confined to the districts to which they belonged. The number of applicant from the ten districts was about 700‑and the routes for which they had applied exceeded three thousand. Thus, for the same routes or parts of the same routes, there were more than one applicant from different districts. Similar was the case of the objectors. The procedure adopted by the authority for hearing the applications and objections as recorded in the minutes was that at first applicants from each district were called and heard either in person or through their representatives. After the applicants had been heard for two days in the first instance, the objectors were called in on the afternoon of 28th. Thus neither the applicants who had applied for the same route or routes nor the objectors were heard at the same time. None of them had, therefore, an opportunity to hear the case of the opposite party and meet it. Subsection (5) of section 57 of the Act lays down that when any representa tion such as is referred to in subsection (3) is made, the Authority shall dispose of the application at a public hearing at which the applicant and the person making the representa tion shall have an opportunity of being heard either in person or by a duly authorised representative. It means that the objector should be present when the applicant puts his case before the Authority in order to effectively reply to it, otherwise it would not amount to an "oppor tunity of being heard". The requirement that applications for stage carriage permits shall be disposed of at a public hearing also indicates that all the parties are to be heard at one and the same time in presence of each other.

19. In order to meet this difficulty, the witnesses for the respondents took up various contradictory positions. Syed Inayat Ali Shah, at first stated that as the agenda had been prepared district‑wise, after the applicants from one district had been heard individually, the objectors were called in while applicants were still there and they were asked to say anything they liked about the objections which they had already submitted in writing or otherwise. He further explained that the objectors were also present when the applicants were being heard but the latter version does not fit in with the earlier sentence that "objectors were called in while the applicants were still there." Mr. Barkhurdar Khan, the non‑official member of the Authority gave the following version:‑ "The lists of the applicants were prepared district‑wise. The applicants from one district were called in first either as a whole, if their number was not large, or in instal ments, and objectors were also invited to come in with them. I cannot now remember whether the specific routes for which the applications were being considered were being announced simultaneously or not, but the names of the applicant companies and their districts were being announced. The court‑room of the Commissioner was packed to capacity and there were people outside also." In reply to a Court question, Mr. Barkhurdar Khan answered:‑ "So far as I remember when the Regional Transport Authority heard the applicant for a particular route in a district it was not said that applicants from other districts concerning that route may also be called in. When each particular route was being considered, it was not got announced that all objectors to that route should also come in but it was generally said in the court‑room that anyone who wanted to object to a particular petitioner may do so." Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema, in his examination‑in‑chief made a somewhat vague statement but when his attention was drawn by Sh. Abdul Haq, counsel for Sargodha‑Bhera Bus Service (petitioners) to the minutes prepared by him, Mr. Cheema affirmed that all applicants were heard on two days and then the objectors were heard (except in respect of a few applications) as mentioned in the minutes. He further clarified that the procedure was not that when any applicant was heard for a particular route, the authority called upon all the objectors who had raised objection in respect of that route to say what they wanted.

20. Apart from the discrepant statements of the members and the Secretary of the Authority, referred to above, if we keep in view the manner in which the agenda was prepared, it becomes so obvious that the applicants and the objectors could not have been heard together as was tried to be made out on behalf of the respondents. There were nearly 170 applicants from Lahore district including the Tariq Transport Company (respondent No. 2). These applicants had applied for routes numbering more than one thousand. In some cases, applicants from the remaining nine districts had also applied for the same routes. Thus when the application of the Tariq Transport Company for Sargodha‑Bhera and Rabwah‑Bhera route was being con sidered, there were seventeen other applicants for the same route, who belonged to different districts. In order to determine as to which of these applicants was better suited for the grant of stage carriage permit, it was necessary that all eighteen of them should have been heard at the same time along with the objectors. This was admittedly not done and could not have been done because when the applicants from Lahore district were called in. there was no data before the Authority to call in applicants for the same routes from other districts. Nor had they any such data with regard to the objectors. In view of this situation, the procedure adopted for consideration of the applications for grant of stage carriage permits was as is recorded in the minutes of the meeting and not as was deposed to before us orally by the members of the Authority and its ex‑Secretary. Mr. Manzoor Qadir, learned counsel for the Authority, fully appreciated this position and while arguing this part of the case, he conceded that in view of the manner in which the agenda was drawn up, all the applicants for a parti cular route and the objectors to it could not have been heard together.

21. Manner in which decisions were taken According to the minutes "after hearing the applicants and the objectors, the authority decided to grant stage carriage permits to the following applicants." (Below this, there is a blank space and the names of the grantees are mentioned in a separate list). Nothing more is said in the minutes as to the manner in which these decisions were taken. Under subsection (7) of section 57 of the Act. when the Authority refuses an application for a permit of any kind, it shall give to the applicant in writing its reasons for the refusal. Orders granting or refusing all kinds of permits by the Authority are appealable. The necessity for giving reasons is, therefore, obvious but none has been given in this case. Now as there were about 700 applicants, out of whom only 54 were granted 150 stage carriage permits, the reasons why the grantees were preferred to others should have been borne out by record. A decision by a Regional Transport Authority to refuse or grant permits of any kind affects the fundamental rights granted to every citizen of Pakistan under Article 12 of the Constitution to enter upon any lawful profession or occupation and conduct any lawful trade or business, subject to regulation by a licensing system decision in this matter is, therefore, of quasi‑judicial nature and must be arrived at not on 'subjective', 'personal'. or 'private' opinion but should conform to an objective standard or criterion laid down or recognised by law and the sound ness or otherwise of the determination must be capable of being tested by the same external standard. In modern welfare states, the system of controls and regulating trades and occupations by licensing is daily growing which invariably interferes with the fundamental rights of the citizens. It is, therefore, time that the executive authorities, who deal with these matters, disabuse their minds of the impression that the application of controls and the grant of‑permits or licenses lies within their personal bounty or gift. While granting or refusing such permits and licences, the authorities are acting at least as quasi‑judicial tribunals and their deci sions must be rested on merits and reasons, rather than on arbitrary and capricious subjective processes.

22. In the present case in the absence of any reasons, the decisions of the Authority in granting stage carriage permits to 64 out of nearly 700 applicants, are arbitrary and capricious. The manner in which these decisions were arrived at is also open to more serious objections. The authority was supposed to have heard 600 applicants or their representatives and the objectors on the 27th and 28th of May 1957. As the meeting proceeded, no decisions were taken, nor any data was kept of the merits or facts of each case though it is said that some members maintained their own notes which are incidentally not forth coming. On the 29th, the members met in the office of Mr. Allah Dad to take decisions in which Mr. Allah Dad himself did not participate in the beginning but eventually the decision of all the cases was referred to him as the official and non‑official members could not agree between themselves. What actually transpired at the meeting is recapitulated by Syed Inayat Ali Shah in his letter Exh. R. 3 W. 3/2, dated the 1st June 1957, to Mr. Allah Dad:‑ "You will remember having shown me certain lists which had been handed over to you by the non‑official members about the persons and companies whom they had recommended for grant of permits. In the case of Khan Barkhurdar the recommendation was for the grant of 124 permits to his nominees. In the case of Makhdum Nazar Hussain it was for 84 and in the case of Mehr Muhammad Arif Khan it was for practically a similar number. (I don't remember the exact figure). I had told you that the foremost criterion for the grant of permits should be the merits of an individual case with which you had agreed. You directed me to hold the meeting saying that you had other important work to attend to and that I should try to explain to the non‑official members that they should try to be fair. The meeting started and I explained to the non‑officials what they were required to do but they were adamant. Eventually they came to 40 permits for the nominees of each member plus a list of persons who they said were the nominees of Col. Sahib (Sayed Abid Hussain Shah, ex‑Minister). This was something very strange. I saw you again and told you what the non‑official members thought about the issue of permits. You again asked me to try to persuade them to be reasonable. This went on for several hours and eventually you were able to give a decision after making adjustments in the total number of permits which the non‑official members reluctantly accepted". The letter concluded with the following observations:‑ "The attitude of the non‑official members throughout the day (29th May 1957), was extremely reprehensible. I had been Provincial Transport Controller for about 2 years and had never heard of the non‑official members joining hands to force decisions as they did on this occasion with threats of boycotting the meeting. I have deliberately refrained from giving all the unsavoury details because you know them too well and it would be just waste of time to recapitulate them. Their behaviour after the meeting was absolutely condemnable". In the end Syed Inayat Ali Shah suggested to Mr. Allah Dad that if the Authority was to conduct its business as it did on Wednesday, the Government may be moved to dissolve it and throw open all the routes to the entire public in the Province. The evidence led by the petitioners and the Provincial Transport Authority suggested that the official members of the Authority wanted to distribute permits to their own nominees and favourites, which was resented by the non‑official members, who in protest walked out of the meeting and subsequently were persuaded to come back and participate in the final deliberations. The suggestion was denied by Syed Inayat Ali Shah but at least this much is clear from the record that after the non‑official members had left during the course of the meeting, Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema and the Superintending Engineer, were sent to call them back. According to Syed Inayat Ali Shah, the non‑official members had gone to the Pipals for taking their lunch but whether it was so or not, it is not necessary to determine as there is no doubt that the non‑official members had for one reason or the other threatened to boycott the meeting as mentioned in the letter of Syed Inayat Ali Shah himself. The Provincial Transport Authority produced a photostat copy of letter Exh. P. T. C/1, written by Mr. Barkhurdar Khan to Mr. Allah Dad, on the 3rd of April 1957, recommending his nominees for grant of motor -rickshaw permits and photostat copies of two lists, one signed by Muhammad Arif Khan, Exh. P. T. C/2, and the other on the letter head of Syed Nazar Husain Shah, Exh. P. T. C/3, (the remaining two non‑official members of the Authority) recommending their nominees for grant of motor‑rickshaw permits. According to the minutes of the meeting, which was held on the 2nd of April 1957, all the applicants mentioned ir. Exh. P.‑T. C/1, seven applicants mentioned in Exh. P. T. C/2 and six mentioned in Exh. P. T. C/3 were granted‑motor‑ rickshaw permits. Exh. P. T. C/4 is a photostat copy of a list of eleven persons, who were applicants for public carrier permits. On the margin of this list, there is an endorsement in the handwriting of Mr. Allah Dad declining to grant permits to Allah Ditta and Abdullah and substituting their names by Iqbal Hussain and Sadiq Hussain, who, it was suggested, were relatives of an official member of the Authority. Mr. Sharif Khan, the Provincial Transport Controller, who conducted the case on behalf of the Provincial Transport Authority, relied upon these photostat copies to support his allegation that the decisions of the Authority to grant permits of all kinds including the decisions in the meeting of the 27th to the 29th May 1957, were based upon, private opinion and not on legal considerations but these documents are irrelevant for determining the issue because the manner in which the members of the Authority acted in the earlier meetings has no bearing on the manner in which they are alleged to have acted in the meeting in question. Yet the letter Exh. P. T.,C/ 1 has some relevance for another purpose. Mr. Barkhurdar, Khan, who is an advocate practising at Mianwali, when shown this letter, neither admitted it to be in his handwriting, nor did he dare to deny it. This gave us a clear impression that he was not a witness of truth, and therefore while judging his testimony, the letter Exh. P. T. C/1 became relevant for assessing his credit as a witness.

23. Lastly it was objected on behalf of the Sargodha -Bhera Bus Service, that when the application of Tariq Transport Company for grant of stage carriage permits on Rabwah‑Bhera and Sargodha‑Bhera route came up for hearing, neither the applicant nor their representative was present. The application of Tariq Transport Company should, in that case, have been adjourned for hearing or rejected. The grant of stage carriage permits to the Tariq Transport Company in their absence was, therefore, in contravention of subsection (5) of section 57 of the Act. Mr. Munir Ahmad, who appeared on behalf of Tariq Transport Company, had himself not attended the meeting and so could not throw any light on this aspect of the case, Their manager, who had attended the meeting, was not produced and no reason has been given for holding him back. In the agenda, the applications of the Tariq Transport Company for stage carriage permits for various routes are mentioned at four different numbers. As against the first two applications, it is mentioned that a representative of the applicants was heard but there is no such minute in regard to the remaining two applications which included Sargodha‑Bhera route. Sh. Bashir Ahmad, learned counsel for respondent No. 2, contended that inasmuch as the presence of the manager of the Tariq Transport Company is mentioned when the two earlier applications were taken up for hearing, the Authority did not consider it necessary to again mention his presence when the remaining two applications were taken up in the presence of the manager. We do not find ourselves in accord with this suggestion, because firstly no such question was put to any member of the Authority or to the Secretary when they appeared in the witness‑box and secondly, in the case of the first two applications the presence of the manager is mentioned separately. The same would have been done in the case of the remaining two applications if the manager was present. If Sh. Bashir Ahmad's suggestion was correct, then the presence of the manager would have been noted only against the first application and not against the second also.

24. In the light of the facts and circumstances mentioned above, we have no doubt that the manner in which the Authority took decisions to grant 150 stage carriage permits to 64 grantees, mentioned in the list attached to the minutes, were wholly unwarranted by law and void ab initio.

25. It is a common ground that Mr. Allah Dad did not participate in the meeting of the Authority on the 27th and the 28th of May 1957, when item No. 17 relating to the grant of stage carriage permits was taken up. Under rule 4.3 (3). the Chairman, if unable to attend a meeting, shall nominate a member to act as Chairman of the meeting. Under sub‑rule (4) of the same rule, the Chairman or the acting Chairman shall have a second or casting vote. Under rule 4.4 (8) when a matter is decided by the votes of members present at a meeting of a Regional Transport Authority, no person other than a member of the Authority shall be entitled to be present and no record of the voting shall be kept save of the number of votes cast on either side. This clearly brings out that neither a Chairman, nor a member of the Authority, who has not attended the meeting, can participate in its deliberations. The relevant evidence in this case, which has been reproduced earlier, shows that the final decision granting 150 stage carriage permits to 64 applicants, including the Tariq Transport Company was taken at the instance and persuasion of Mr. Allah Dad. It will be recalled that the three non‑official members had their individual lists of nominees and they insisted that each one of them should get a permit. Ultimately at the behest of Syed Inayat Ali Shah, they reduced the number of their nominees to forty each. It was at this stage that the matter was referred to Mr. Allah Dad and he adjusted the claims of the non‑official members in a manner, which was reluc tantly accepted by them, This shows that Mr. Allah Dad had very largely influenced the ultimate decisions of the Authority in granting the impugned stage carriage permits. As Mr. Allah Dad had not heard the applicants and the objectors himself. his participation was, therefore, unwarranted and this vitiated the decision of the Authority in relation to each one of the 150 stage carriage permits granted in the meeting in question.

26. As to the locus standi of the Sargodha‑Bhera Bus Service (Petitioners) to maintain this petition, it was con tended that the application of the Tariq Transport Company for the grant of stage carriage permits on Rabwah‑Bhera route was duly published in the "Driver" of the 24th October 1956. The petitioners did not submit any representations against it as required by subsection (3) of section 57 of the Act, and were, therefore, precluded under subsection (4) of the said section from objecting to the grant of stage carriage permits on any part of the proposed route. In support of this view, reliance was placed on section 47 (1) of the Act, which inter alia provides that a Regional Transport Authority shall, in deciding whether to grant or refuse a stage carriage permit, take into consideration any representations made by persons already providing road transport facilities along or near the proposed route or routes. As the Sargodha‑Bhera route is included in Rabwah‑Bhera route, it was maintained that although no notice of the application of the Tariq Transport Company for Sargodha‑Bhera route was published, by virtue of the provisions of section 47 (1) it was incumbent upon the petitioners to submit representations against the grant of stage carriage permits on the proposed route within the time specified under subsection (3) of section

57. As the petitioners had not admittedly done so, it was urged that they were precluded from objecting to the grant of stage carriage permits to the Tariq Transport Company on the Sargodha -Bhera route. There is no force in the contention because whereas section 57 confers a general right on every person to object to the grant of stage carriage permits provided he had submitted representations within the specified period, section 47 makes it mandatory on the Authority to hear objections by persons who are already providing road transport facilities along or near the proposed route or routes irrespective of the fact whether such persons have separately made representations under section 57 or not.

27. Sh. Bashir Ahmad, counsel for the Tariq Transport Company next contended that under rule 4.8 (2), the Authority may modify a route while granting a stage carriage permit and as the Tariq Transport Company had applied for such permits on the Rabwah‑Bhera route which included Sargodha‑Bhera route, it was necessary for the petitioners to submit their representations in opposition to that appli cation within the specified time and as they had failed to do so, they do not have the locus standi to maintain the present petition. The argument essentially remains the same although presented in a different form. We have held that in granting stage carriage permits to the Tariq Transport Company on the Sargodha‑Bhera route, the Authority did not purport to have acted under rule 4.8 (2). But even if this rule was resorted to we do not agree with the learned counsel's contention because it is not difficult to contemplate cases in which a person already providing transport facilities on a shorter route may not be interested in objecting to the grant of a stage carriage permit on a longer route which includes his own route, but in case a stage carriage permit is applied for, specifically for the route on which he is an existing transporters, he may be keenly interested in opposing the application because of very much closer competition. It is, therefore, in the interest of justice that a notice of the proposed modified route should also be given by the Authority as in the case of a new application under subsection (3) of section

57. We are fortified in this view as under rule 4.8 (2), the Authority may modify the route, not necessarily by cutting it short, but by changing it altogether. It could not be said in that case that no notice of the proposed modified route was required although it would affect the rights of persons who are providing transport facilities on that route. We are, therefore, of the opinion that while rule 4.8 (2) entitles the Authority to modify a route, it does not override the provisions of sections 47 (1) and 57 (3) of the Act reproduced earlier.

28. In consequence of our above findings, the pro ceedings of the Authority in regard to the grant of stage carriage permits at the meeting of the 27th, to the 29th of May 1957, are quashed and set aside and the Authority is directed to re‑hear the applications for grant of such permits along with the representations of the objectors in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Act and the rules quoted earlier in this order. The authority shall al‑so pay the costs of the petitioners in Writ Petition No. 815 and of the Provincial Transport Authority (respondent No. 3)

29. In accordance with our above order, Writ Petition No. 923 of 1957 by the Diamond Transport Company is also dismissed but there will be no order as to costs, as the directions of the Provincial Transport Controller to the Authority that it could not issue any inter‑regional route permit was erroneous. In fact, the Act itself envisages the issue of such permits, subject to endorsement by the other Authority concerned.

30. Before parting with this order, we might mention that although we recorded some evidence on the allegation that forgery was committed in the record of the Authority, more particularly in respect of the list of grantees of the stage carriage permits, the letter of Mr. Muhammad Ghani Cheema, dated the 11th June 1957 (Exh. R. 2) and the list of route permits attached to the application of the Tariq Transport Company (Exh. P. 2), we have not felt called upon to pronounce any considered finding on the issue because the decision of the case does not turn upon the genuineness or otherwise of these documents and it could not be said that a full and proper inquiry was held into an allegation of such a serious nature. At the same time, we must observe that in the light of the facts and the circum stances disclosed during the hearing of this case, it could not be said that the allegation was wholly unwarranted and we leave it to the Government to decide what action it chooses to take in the matter. A. H. Proceedings of meeting quashed.