P L D 1965 Supreme Court 248 (PLP)

HAMOODUR RAHMAN, J.‑These appeals, by special leave, arise out of an appellate order of a Member, Board of Revenue, West Pakistan, acting as a Transport Appellate Authority, passed on the 9th of February 1962, whereby the stage‑carriage permits granted to the appellants in these appeals by the Provincial Transport Authority, West Pakistan, on the Lahore‑Hafizabad route, were cancelled. The respondents in both these appeals are common. It appears that the respondents Nos. 2 to 4 herein along with the appellants and some 45 others, in response to an advertisement issued by the Provincial Transport Authority inviting applications, applied for the stage‑carriage permits on the Lahore‑Hafizabad via Gujranwala inter‑regional route. The Provincial Transport Authority after duly publishing these applications took the same up for consideration at its meeting held on the 2nd and 3rd June 1961 and granted 15 route permits to some 7 applicants including the appellants herein who were granted two permits each. The respondents Nos. 2 to 4 herein were not successful in getting any permit at all. Before the Provincial Transport Authority each of the applicants had applied for the grant of certain' stage‑carriage permits to himself, as on this route a large number of permits were going to be issued. Thus the respondents Nos. 2 to 4 also applied for grant of permits to themselves without specifically opposing the grants of permits in favour of any of the other applicants. Being unsuccessful, however, in obtaining any permit the said respondents along with 10 other unsuccessful candidates filed 13 separate appeals before the Transport Appellate Authority under section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act, but in the appeals filed by respondents Nos. 2 and 3 herein the appellants were not made parties. The said respondents did not also ask for the cancellation of the permits, granted. ,to. the. said appellants but merely prayed that. ‑permits should be‑ granted to them also. The Transport Appellate Authority heard all the 13 appeals together and disposed of them by one order which is now impugned before us. It took the view that since the appellant‑West Pakistan Transport Company held 8 permits against 9 vehicles at the time that it was granted the two new permits on the Lahore‑Hafizabad route, it was short of vehicles and was not in a position to effectively operate on all the routes with only 8 vehicles. Similarly the appellant‑Express Bus Service Limited was also considered unsuitable, as it was a new concern possessing only 2 vehicles of its own and two vehicles taken from other operators on commission basis. The appellate authority, accordingly can celled the permits of the said appellants and distributed them amongst the respondents Nos. 2 to

4. The respondent No. 4 was granted 2 permits and the other two respondents one permit each. The respondent‑Khurshid & Company, which was found by the appellate authority to be in possession of two vehicles of 1960 model, was considered to be better equipped. It was also felt that it would be a hardship not to grant it any permit at all, particularly, as two of its shareholders were "well‑educated persons with an aptitude for transport business." It was, there fore, given one route permit. The respondent‑M. A. Transport Company was, according to the appellate authority, in possession of 8 vehicles but even so no permit had been granted to it to ply any of its vehicles on any route. The respondent‑G. T. Bus Service Limited was also considered suitable for being granted two permits, as it was an old transport concern having a number of spare vehicles including new models. The appellants seek to challenge this order of the appellate authority upon mainly four grounds; namely: (1) that the appeal before the appellate authority was incompetent, as an appeal against the grant of a permit could only be filed by a person who had opposed the grant of a permit and is aggrieved by the grant thereof or any condition attached thereto under section 64 (f) of the Motor Vehicles Act, (2) that in an appeal against the refusal of the grant of a permit by the Transport Authority an appellant could not ask for the cancellation of a permit granted to another person, (3) that no adverse order can be made in an appeal of a particular party against another who is not made a party to that appeal, and (4) that, in any event, since the respondents Nos. 2 and 3 did not raise any objection to the grant of permits to the appellants, they could not seek in the appeal to have the permits of the appellants cancelled. We propose to take up for consideration the points urged in this appeal in the order in which they have been mentioned above. So far as the first point is concerned it is necessary for its proper appreciation to examine the provisions of section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. The relevant provisions of this section, which provides for appeals, are as follows:‑

64. Any person‑ (a) aggrieved by the refusal of the Provincial or, a Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit, or by any condition attached to a permit granted to him, or (b) . . . . . . . . . (c) . . . . . . . . . (d) . . . . . . . . . (e) . . . . . . . . . . (f) being a local authority or police authority or an associ ation which, or a person providing transport facilities who, having opposed the grant of a permit, is aggrieved by the grant thereof or by any condition attached thereto, or (g) . . . . . . . . . may, within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, appeal to the prescribed authority who shall give such person and the original authority an opportunity of being heard." Learned counsel appearing in support of these appeals seeks to contend that each of the clauses of this section deals with a specific case and gives a right of appeal only to the person who is aggrieved in that case by the refusal of the prayer or relief mentioned in that clause. Thus only certain grievances of a particular type, as specified in each of the clauses thereof, can be raised in an appeal under a particular clause. Under clause (a) only a person who has been refused a permit, it is contended, may complain against such refusal and only ask for a permit to be granted to him. He has no right, it is said, in such an appeal to ask for the cancellation of a permit granted to another. Similarly a person, who has only objected to the grant of a permit to another person, can be aggrieved by the grant of such a permit to that person. This is specifically dealt with in clause (f) and therefore, the right of appeal conferred under this clause is limited to the persons mentioned therein, namely, a local authority or a Police authority or an association which, or a person providing transport facilities who, had opposed the grant of a permit to another. Reference in this connection is also made to sections 47, 50, 55 and 57 of the Motor Vehicles Act to show that under these sections the Transport Authority is required to take into consideration representations made by local authorities or police authorities or by associations interested in the provision of road transport facilities or persons already providing transport facilities along or near the proposed route or routes. Therefore, since these are the persons who are specifically mentioned in clause (f) of section 64 the intention of the said clause, it is said, clearly was that only the persons mentioned therein should have a right of appeal against the grant of a permit to another person. In the present case, of course, no local authority, police authority or association is involved but‑, a person already providing transport facilities on other nearby routes, or persons seeking to provide transport facilities on this, route., are concerned, but since they never objected to the grant of permits to the appellants, they, it is contended, are not persons who can qualify under clause (f) to appeal against the order granting permits to the appellants. In other words the appellants seek to urge that‑ in the case of refusal of permits on the ground of preference of one applicant over anoher no appeal at all lies. We are unable to accept this contention. We cannot impute to the Legislature an intention of making such an unjust and unfair discrimination. Clause (f) cannot, in our view, be read as controlling clause (a) or restricting the right given thereunder. Section 64, in our view merely confers a right of appeal on the category of persons mentioned in its various clauses but does not specify the nature of the relief that they may seek in the appeal. It defines the persons who can prefer an appeal but does not define or restrict the powers of the appellate authority. If, therefore, a person is competent to prefer an appeal under any one of the clauses of the said section, he may in that appeal be granted any relief that may be appropriate for doing full justice to his case. There is nothing in the Motor Vehicles Act to indicate that a person who has applied for the grant of a permit to him cannot be aggrieved if a permit is granted to another and none to him or that the right of appeal given by clause (a) will be wholly illusory in a case where relief can only be granted by setting aside an order granting a permit to another. Each clause, in our view, creates an independent right and is not controlled by any other clause but the appeal is, nevertheless, an affective appeal and the appellate authority must be deemed in the absence of any express restrictive words in the statute to be clothed with all necessary powers to do full justice by granting the relief to which the appellant may be found entitled. Coming now to the second point, it seems to us that having regard to the view we have taken above of the nature of the right conferred by clause (a) of section 64 the possibility of re‑distribution of permits in an appeal under that clause (a) cannot be excluded for, such re‑distribution would really be incidental to the power of the appellate authority to allow an appeal of a person aggrieved by the refusal of a permit to him or consequential upon it. It is difficult to appreciate how else relief can be granted to a successful appellant under clause (a) of section 64 if the number of route permits on a particular route is limited, except by taking away permits granted to others. Learned counsel suggests that relief under this particular clause can only be granted to an appellant by increasing the number of route permits on that route. We do not, however, find any justification for this contention from anything in the statute itself. It is, in our view, not necessary for him to do so, for, if he succeeds in the appeal and relief can only be granted to him by taking away the permit from another to whom it has been granted, the appellate authority is not powerless to do so. We might mention here that in India also a similar view has been taken in the case of Ram Gopal v. Anant Prasad and another (AIR1959SC851) as to the scope of an appeal under clause (a) of section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act which is a prepartition Act. This disposes of the first two points urged on behalf of the appellants. So far as the next point is concerned, it is admitted by the learned counsel that in the other 10 appeals which were filed against the same order of the Provincial Transport Authority the appellants had been made parties. Therefore, since all the appeals were heard together, the appellants are bound by the order, for, this was an order also in the said 10 appeals. It further appears from the order of the Transport Appellate Authority that the cases of each one of the appellants and respon dents before it were considered separately and separate reasons were given for interference in each case. In effect, therefore, the appellate authority dealt specifically with each one of the appeals and in each case what it decided was whether the grant or refusal to the parties in that case was proper and in accordance with law. Where it found it necessary to interfere, it cancelled the grant to the party to which it had been granted and directed that it be granted to another from amongst the appellants before it whom it considered fit for the grant of such a permit. No illegality was, therefore, committed by the Transport Appellate Authority, nor can it be said that it acted without jurisdiction in so cancel ling the permits of the appellants. The party whose permit was cancelled cannot also legitimately complain of any prejudice, for, it had the fullest opportunity to present its case in any of the other appeals to which it was made a party. The last point, namely, that since the respondents Nos. 2 and 3 had not taken any specific ground challenging the grant of permits to the appellants they could not have asked for the cancellation of the permits granted to the appellants herein, has been already dealt with while discussing the first two points and we do not wish to reiterate our reasons for rejecting the said contention. It must, however, be pointed out that this point has been raised for the first time in this Court in the course of arguments. It does not appear that it was taken before the appellate authority or even in the grounds of appeal filed in this Court or in the appellant's concise statement. It cannot, therefore, in any event, be enter tained at this late stage. In the result, therefore, we find no substance in any one of the points urged in support of these appeals which must, accordingly, fail and are hereby dismissed with costs. A. H. Appeals dismissed.