ORDER
1. In this case the petitioner, Muhammad Pearuddin, has moved the High Court for grant of a writ in the nature of certiorari under Article 227 of the Constitution for setting aside the order of the Deputy Minister of Transport, dated the 20th September 1963, by which he allowed the appeal of respondent No. 3, Janardhan Prasad Choudhary, under Section 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act and granted him a permit for both the up and down service on the inter State Dumka Suri route.
2. On behalf of the petitioner the main contention put forward is that the appeal preferred by respondent No. 3 before the Deputy Minister of Transport was barred by limitation under Rule 70 of the Motor Vehicles Rules. It was pointed out that the order of the State Transport Authority was made on the 31st March, 1962, and respondent No. 3 filed a memorandum of appeal before the secretary to the Government in the Political Department on me 28th April, 1962. The memorandum of appeal was not accompanied by a copy of the order of the State Transport Authority which was furnished by respondent No. 3 on the 9th July, 1962. The argument put forward on behalf of the petitioner was that the appeal was properly filed only on the 9th July, 1962, when, the copy of the order was furnished by respondent No. 3, and, therefore, it was barred by limitation, and the Deputy Minister had no authority to decide the appeal in favour of respondent No. 3. In our opinion the argument put forward on behalf of the petitioner, is well founded and must be accepted as correct. Rule 70 provides as follows :
“70. The authority to decide an appeal against an order of the State Transport Authority in respect of any of the matters mentioned in clauses (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f) or (g) of Section 64 of the Act shall be such officer of the State Government or such tribunal as the State Government by order appoint either generally or for any particular appeal or class of appeals, and any person desiring to prefer an appeal against any such order of the State Transport Authority shall, within thirty days of the date of the order, send or deliver to the Secretary to the State Government in the Political Department a memorandum in duplicate signed by the appellant setting forth concisely the grounds of objection to the order appealed from and shall be accompanied by a copy of the order. The officer or tribunal appointed to decide the appeal shall give the appellant, the respondent the original authority not less than thirty days notice of the time and place at which the appeal will be heard.”
The rule provides that the person aggrieved must send or deliver the memorandum of appeal to the Secretary to the State Government in the Political Department within thirty days of the date of the order, and the memorandum of appeal shall be accompanied by a copy of the order appealed from. In our opinion, this requirement with regard to furnishing of the copy of the order along with the memorandum of appeal is mandatory in character, and in the absence of the copy of the order the presentation of the memorandum of appeal cannot be taken to be proper presentation on the part of respondent No. 3, The language of Rule 70 is similar to that of Order 41, Rule 1, Code of Civil Procedure, and it has been held in Sitikantha Roy v. Bipra Das Charan, AIR 1915 Cal 693 that a memorandum of appeal should be accompanied by a copy of the decree appealed from and therefore no appeal is effective under Order 41, Rule 1, unless it is accompanied by a copy of the decree. It was pointed out in that case by the Calcutta High Court that it is a condition precedent to there being a valid memorandum of appeal that the memorandum should be accompanied by a copy of decree appealed from. There is similarity in language on this point between Order 41, Rule 1, Code of Civil Procedure, and Rule 70 of the Motor Vehicles Rules, and we see no reason why a different intepretation should be given to Rule 70. We, therefore, hold that the requirement of furnishing a copy of the order along with the memorandum of appeal is peremptory in character and it is a condition precedent to there being a valid memorandum of appeal under Rule 70 of the Motor Vehicles Rules.
In the present case, of course, the limitation of thirty days will run not from the 31st March, 1962, which is the date of the order of the State Transport Authority, but from the 4th May 1962 which is the date of the communication of the order to respondent No. 3. That is the view expressed by the Supreme Court in Harish Chandra v. Deputy Land Acquisition Officer, AIR 1961 S C 1500, where it was pointed out that the expression “the date of the award” used in Proviso (b) to Section 18 (2) must mean the date when the award is either communicated to the party or is known by him either actually or constructively, and it would be unreasonable to construe the words ..”frow the date of the Collector’s award” used in the proviso to Section 18 in a literal or mechanical way. But even if limitation is computed from the 4th May, 1962, still the appeal of respondent No. 3 is barred, for he supplied the certified copy of the order of the State Transport Authority only on the 9th July, 1962, and that was the date on which the appeal became legally effective. It follows therefore, that the appeal of respondent No. 3 before the Deputy Minister of Transport was barred by limitation and should have been dismissed by the Deputy Minister on that ground.
3. Acting, therefore, in exercise of our authority under Article 227 of the Constitution, we set aside the order of the Deputy Minister of Transport, dated the 20th September, 1963, with regard to the appeal preferred by respondent No. 8, namely, appeal No. A3-8012/62, and order that (sic) that appeal should be dismissed.
4. We accordingly allow this application. There will be no order as to costs.
