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Petition No. 1 of 1963, decided on 10th January 1964.

, S. 47 (a)‑Permit--- Cancellation by Board of Revenue‑Permit‑holder a new‑comer--- Permit cancelled because unnecessary increase fn number of operators will lead to competition on road, and this to increase in accidents, and so grant of permit to new‑comer will not be in public interest‑High Court refused to interfere in Board's decision, being neither wanting in jurisdiction, nor being in disregard of Pro cedure laid down in Act‑ [Tariq Transport Co. Lahore v. Sargodha Bhera Bus Service P L D 1958 S C (Pak.) 437 and Ikram Bus Service v. Board of Revenue P L D 1963 S C 564 rel.

, S. 64 (a) read with S. 48 (a)‑Board of Revenue empowered to cancel permit of another operator while accepting appeal of aggrieved applicant for permit‑Number of permits to be allocated determined by Regional Transport Authority under S. 48 (a)‑Board not entitled to increase that number in exercise of its appellate jurisdiction ‑[Abdul Matin v. Ram Kailash A I R 1963 S C 64 ref.]

Salahuddin for Petitioner.

Azizullah K. Shaikh for Respondents.

Dates of hearing : 9th and 10th January 1964.

‑This petition is directed against the order dated 20th November 1962 passed by the Member, Board of Revenue, West Pakistan on an appeal under section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act.

2. The facts briefly stated are as follows: The petitioner, which is a limited Company, amongst many others applied for two stage carriage permits in answer to an advertisement by the respondent No.1, namely the Regional Transport Authority, Hyderabad, dated 28th November 1961, whereby applications had been invited for 5 stage carriage permits for the route Mirpur Khas to Matli via Digree and Tando Ghulamali. The Regional Transport Authority in their meeting held on 26‑5‑62 which was in continuation of the meeting held on 25‑5‑62 granted one of the stage carriage permits to the petitioner. There were twenty‑one other applicants for the same route. The parties aggrieved by the refusal of the Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit appealed to the Member, Board of Revenue who, by his order dated 28th November 1961, disposed of all the appeals. We are in this petition merely concerned with the case of the petitioner. The Member, Board of Revenue cancelled the permit granted to the petitioner and the discussion with regard to its case is contained in Para. 9 of the order. The reason given by the learned Member, Board of Revenue, was that the petitioner was a new‑comer in the passenger transport business of the region and that even apart from that question the grant of permit to it would have the effect of unnecessarily enlarging the number of operators running passenger buses and that this was not in public interest. It was pointed out that various committees dealing with the alarming increase in the number of road accidents had held that one of the basic causes of this disturbing phenomena was the large number of operators whose buses competed against each other on the same route and in the same area. It was added that for certain major routes and in certain areas there may be a case for importing fresh blood but in the present care when the route was not of major importance and the existing operators were well‑equipped to deal with the traffic, it was undesirable to increase the number of bus operators.

3. The petitioner then approached this Court under Article 9g of the Constitution praying for a declaration that the order of the respondent No. 1, the Board of Revenue, in so far as it relates to the cancellation of its permit is without lawful authority and that the permit of the petitioner to ply the stage carriage be restored.

4. Mr. Salahuddin, the learned Advocate for the petitioner, has urged two points before us. Firstly, it was contended that the reasons given by the respondent No. 2 for the cancellation of the permit of the petitioner were outside the purview of section 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Secondly, it was urged that in appeal the Member, Board of Revenue had no power to cancel the permit of the petitioner and what he could do was to grant another permit to the aggrieved appellants.

5. With regard to the first contention the argument of the learned counsel was that the question whether a petitioner was a new‑comer in that region for the purposes of stage carriage business is not one of the grounds enumerated in section 47 of the .Act which the Regional Transport Authority has to take into account while granting or refusing the stage carriage permit. The material portion of section 47 may be conveniently quoted "47.‑(1) A Regional Transport Authority shall, in deciding whether to grant or refuse a stage carriage permit, have regard to the following matters, namely:‑

(a) the interest of the public generally ;

(b) the advantages to the public of the service to be pro vided, including the saving of time likely to be effected thereby and any convenience arising from journeys not being broken;

(c) the adequacy of existing road passenger transport services between the places to be served, the fares charged by those services and the effect upon those services of the service proposed ;

(d) the benefit to any particular locality or localities likely to be afforded by the service ;

(e) the operation by the applicant of other transport services and in particular of unremunerative services in conjunction with remunerative services ; and

(f) the condition of the roads included in the proposed route or routes ;

and shall also take into consideration any representations made by persons already providing road transport facilities along or near the proposed route or routes or by any local authority or police authority within whose jurisdiction any part of the proposed route or routes lies or by any association interested "in the provision of road transport facilities."

It was next argued that the ground of public interest intro duced by the Member, Board of Revenue was on the face of it unfounded because 5 stage carriage permits had been granted by the R. T. A. and the cancellation of the permit of the petitioner by the Member, Board of Revenue was not intended to reduce the number of permits which, in any case, was retained.

6. It is true that the question whether an applicant Is a new‑comer is not as such stated in any of the grounds set out In section 47. But it has to be remembered that the learned Member, Board of Revenue did not take this as a solitary consideration for canceling the permit of the petitioner. The view taken by him was that the unnecessary enlarging of the number of operators on a route which was not of major impor tance was likely to encourage competition between the new and old operators of the region and this was likely to result in road accidents which was the view which had also been taken by the local committees. The learned Member, therefore, took the view that by introducing a new operator when there were already, existing operators in the region would not be in public interest. We do not see how it is open to us to interfere with that assess ment of the question by the learned Member in relation to public Interest. It was pointed out by the Supreme Court in the case of Tariq Transport Co. Lahore v. Sargodha Bhera Bus Service (P L D 1958 S C (Pak.) 437) that the Courts should not interfere with the determination of the Transport Authorities unless the decision suffered from the absence of jurisdiction. This view was affirmed in a recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Ikrarn Bus Service v. Board of Revenue (P L D 1963 S C 564). In this case there is neither the absence of jurisdiction nor is there any disregard of procedure laid down by the Act. We cannot interfere with the decision of the Member, Board of Revenue upon the ground that his assessment of public interest with regard to the grant of permit to the petitioner was erroneous.

7. The next contention of Mr. Salahuddin that the petitioner's permit could not have been cancelled in appeal by the Member, Board of Revenue, is equally without force. The learned counsel urged that under section 64 (a) when a person prefers an appeal having been aggrieved by the refusal of the Provincial or Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit to him the Appellate Authority may grant to him a permit but it has no power to cancel the permit already granted to another person by the Regional Transport Authority. As to the power of the Appellate Authority to increase the limit of permit we are of the opinion that section 48 (a) of the Act does not permit this. That section gives power only to the Regional Transport Authority to limit the number of stage carriage permits and once they have fixed that number section 64 does not empower the Appellate Authority to increase that limit. This was also the view taken by the Supreme Court of India in the case of Abdul B Matin v. Ram Kailash (AIR 1963 SC 64).

8. With regard to the contention that section 64 does not give power to the Appellate Authority to cancel the permit, it is sufficient to say that in so far as section 64 (a) provides for an appeal by a person who is aggrieved by the refusal of the Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit, the Appellate Authority must necessarily have the power to determine whether the claim of the appellants for the grant of a permit is preferable to the claim of the person to whom the permit had been granted by the Regional Transport Authority, in other words, which of the two parties would better serve the interest of the public generally When such an examination takes place it is obvious that if the claim of the appellant is preferred by the Appel late Authority and the permit is granted to him, the grant by the Regional Transport Authority to the other person must be cancelled.

9. No other point was urged and for the reasons given we dismiss this petition with costs.

The interim injunction is vacated.

A. H. Petition dismissed.

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