P L D 1962 Supreme Court 108 (PLP)

S. A. RAHMAN, J.‑

This appeal, by special leave, seeks to call in question an order, passed by the Dacca High Court in writ jurisdiction. The appellant had prayed for the issue of a writ to the first respondent, the Regional Transport Authority, directing to rescind its Resolution No. 4, dated the 31st December 1960, by which in effect three stage‑carriage permits of the appellant were taken away and allotted to the second, third and fourth respondents. In addition, the appellant claimed the relief that the old permits of the appellant's three buses in question should be declared to be valid for three years, expiring on the 2nd of February 1963. The High Court declined to issue the writ asked for and dismissed the petition. Special leave was granted, as it, was urged before this Court that the nature of the pees‑pits issued to the appellant for his three buses and the fees paid by him indicated that the permits in question were not temporary ones, relatable to section 62 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1919, and that] they should be deemed to have been issued under section 58 of the Act, so that the period of one year, mentioned therein, should be deemed to be three years. It appears that the first respondent passed a Resolution on the 7th of December 1949, in the following terms :‑ "Considered the petition of the proprietor, Momin Motor Company, Dacca; and resolved that he be allowed temporary permits to ply his buses on the Tarabo Narsingdi Road, via Baburhat on condition that i.e will make the road bus‑worthy to the satisfaction of the District Engineer and that he will stop the bus service the moment he is desired to do so by the Superintending Engineer, Eastern Circle, Dacca. No other party will be granted any permit on this route during this period." Twenty‑one stage‑carriage permits appear to have been granted in pursuance of this Resolution to the appellant from time to time, the earliest being issued on the 19th January 1950, and the date of expiry, mentioned therein, being the 31st of December 1950. It is claimed that the appellant spent a lot of money in making the road in question bus‑worthy and in con sideration of that fact, the Regional Transport Authority had granted these permits to him, to the exclusion of all others. These permits were renewed every year, the last renewal having taken place on the 2nd of February 1960. On the 21st of October 1960, the appellant was Informed by a letter, issued by the Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Dacca, that the route permits hitherto granted to him, would not be extended beyond the 31st of December 1960. It was pointed out in this letter that the Regional Transport Authority had passed a Resolution to that effect and had decided to invite applications for the twenty‑one permits hitherto held by the appellant. Reference was made in the letter to the previous Resolution of the Regional Transport Authority, dated the 7th of December 1949, in which it had been explicitly stated that the appellant had also agreed to stop his bus service the moment he was desired to do so. For the first time apparently, the regular procedure envisaged by section 57 of the Act was resorted to and applications invited for stage‑carriage permits for the route in question. After going through the necessary formalities, 18 permits were issued to the appellant‑Company, while three were assigned to the second, third and fourth respondents. The High Court has found that from the very start, permits had been ostensibly issued on a temporary basis to the appellant, for one year at a time, that they were not relatable to regular permits issuable under section 57 and renewable under section 58 of the Act, as the procedure envisaged by those sections had never been followed, and the period of a permit on renewal fixed thereby is a minimum of three years, that they were not even temporary permits, as contemplated by section 62 of the Act and that they were, therefore, either illegally issued to the appellant or irregularly granted to him so that they were outside the purview of the Act. Such permits, it was held, created no legal right in the appellant to ask for a writ in the circumstances of this case. The learned Judges refused to accede to the contention that the last renewal of the 21 permits, granted to the appellant, bad the effect in law of giving them force for three years. It was further pointed out that an appeal lay to the higher Transport Authority from the orders of the R. T. A. and that such an appeal was still pending and that adequate relief could be obtained from that forum. Mr. Hamidul Huq Chowdhury, who has argued the appeal before us, has contended that the High Court were not right in describing the first permits issued in favour of the appellant as temporary permits. Learned counsel suggests whatever the terms of the Resolution, passed by the R. T. A. on the 7th of December 1949, may have been, the permits issued on their face showed that they were non‑temporary permits, though the period mentioned therein was only one year. In this connection our attention was invited to the fact that the permits had been Issued in Form P. St. P. which under rule 60 of the Bengal Motor Vehicles Rules, 1940, pertains to a permit issued under section 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act and not under section 62 of the Act. A temporary permit is supposed to be issued in Form P. Tem. Further, the permit fee charged from the appellant was Rs. 40 per vehicle per annum which is the fee for a regular stage carriage permit under rule 65, the fee for a temporary permit being assessed at Rs. 5 per week or a part of a week for one region. At the same time, it was conceded that there was nothing to show on the record that the R. T. A. while granting these permits bad gone through the procedure laid down in section 57 of the Act, or that at the time of renewal a similar procedure had been followed as required by section

58. It is suggested that the records being with the R. T. A., it was no part of the appellant's duty to establish affirmatively that the procedure envisaged by these two sections had in fact been followed. The case for the first respondent, on the contrary, is that the R. T. A. had never purported to act under section 57 or 58 of the Act, and in fact had been granting temporary permits without the procedure contemplated by these sections having been invoked. It may be noticed in this context that section 57 requires applications made for stage‑carriage permits to be published in the prescribed manner together with a notice of the date before which representa tions in connection therewith may be submitted. Rule 57 of the Bengal Motor Vehicle Rules, 1940, prescribes that publication of the particulars of applications for stage carriage permits shall be made in a newspaper or newspaper of standing, published in the region. It was, consequently, open to the appellant to produce evidence in the shape of these newspapers to establish that the procedure of section 57 of the Act had been gone through. The appellant has not even cared to put in his own affidavit as to whether be ever applied under section 57, or that his application was duly published in consequence of its provisions. Taking this fact into consideration, along with the terms of the Resolution, passed by the R. T. A. on the 7th December 1949, which explains the genesis of the permits granted to the appellant from time to time, it follows that the permits in question were not relatable to section 57 or section 58 of the Act. Temporary permits can only be issued under section 62 of the Act for a maximum period of four months, and for the specific purposes mentioned in that section. It is not claimed on behalf of the respondents that any one of the purposes, mentioned in clauses (a), (b) and (c) of that section can be described as appellant in the circumstances of the present case. It must be held, therefore, that the permits, issued in the instant case, had no relation to section 62 of the Act. The position that emerges, therefore, is that the permits were issued to the appellant, not In accordance with the provisions o., the Act, but in pursuance of a procedure which seems to have been invented by the R. T. A. for its own purpose. On these facts, it is not possible to take exception to the view expressed by the High Court that the permits were granted in an irregular or illegal manner not contemplated by the Act, and, therefore, the created no legal rights under the Act, such as could be protected by invoking the writ jurisdiction of the High Court. The mere fact that the form for a regular permit was used or that the fee for a regular permit had been charged would not alter this essential position. Mr. Hamidul Huq Chowdhury tried to support his position by reference to a Division Bench judgment of the Lahore High Court, reported as West Pakistan Government v. Pindi‑Jhelum Valley Transport Ltd (P L D 1953 Lah, 339) and to a decision from the Indian jurisdiction, published as Y. Mahboob Sheriff & Son v. Mysore State Transport Authority (AIR 1960 S G 321). These two cases appear to be distinguishable on the facts from the instant case. The decision therein proceeded on the assumption that if the permits originally granted were valid regular permits and the Transport Authority purported to act with reference to section 58 of the Act, but curtailed the period of renewal to less than three years, then in law, the curtailed period is to be ignored by virtue of section 58 of the Act and it should be presumed that the permits were valid for the minimum period of three years, mentioned in that section. As has been pointed out above, here from their very inception the issuance of the permits was irregular and it cannot be said that the irregularity crept in only at the time of their renewal. The cases, therefore do not lend much assistance to the contention raised on behalf of the appellant. Assuming for the sake of argument that in view of the Forma used and the fees realized, the permits in question may be deemed from the very start to have been issued under section 57 and renewed under section 58 of the Act, it would not be possible toy accept the contention that for validation purposes the Court should look only to the last date of renewal, namely, the 2nd of February 1960. The previous history of the case could not be ignored in this context. If the argument of the learned counsel is to prevail, then the starting point should be the 19th of January 1950 when the first permits were granted. The terms of these permits should be deemed to be three years in accordance' with the principle invoked and they should have been deemed to have been legally renewed at intervals of three years, the renewals at other points of time being ignored as mere redundancies. On this view, the latest regular renewal would fall on the 19th January, 1959, and these renewals would expire in January 1962, which is a date prior to the hearing of the present appeal. No relief can. therefore, be granted to the appellant in respect of what is pasi and over, even if effect were to be given to be view pressed , for' acceptance. Learned counsel then attempted to argue that his client had contractual rights, because he bad been made to spend a lot of 'money on making the road bus‑worthy and the understanding was that no other permit‑holder would be introduced in this route. The short answer to this contention is that contractual rights, if any, are not enforceable by recourse to writ jurisdiction. On either view of the case, therefore, no ground has been made out for interference with the order passed by the High Court. The appeal is, consequently, dismissed, but in the circums tances of the case, we make no order as to costs. A.H. Appeal dismissed.