JUDGMENT
Jawahar Lal Gupta, J.
1. Pepsu Road Transport Corporation, the petitioner, is aggrieved by the order of the State Transport Appellate Tribunal, by which a route permit has been granted to respondent No. 3, the Kamal Bus Service. A few facts may be noticed.
2. The State Transport Commissioner granted a temporary Stage Carriage Permit for plying one return trip daily on Dharamgarh-Chandigarh route in favour of the petitioner for a period of four months during the year 1976. This permit was renewed from time to time. On July 27, 1987, the Supreme Court of India in M/s Jagjit Bus Service (Regd.) Amritsar v. State Transport Commissioner Punjab, A. I. R. 1987 S. C. 2272, ordered the cessation of all temporary permits and the grant of regular permits on all those routes where the need of the travelling public is of a permanent nature Accordingly, applications for the grant of one regular stage carriage permit for plying one return trip on the said route were invited vide notice dated June 13, 1988. Respondent No. 3 along with the petitioner had another Company applied for the grant of the permit. In accordance with the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter to be referred to as the 1939 Act) as also the rules framed thereunder, the contents of the applications were published and objections were invited. After consideration of the matter, the State Transport Commissioner granted the permit to the petitioner. Aggrieved by this order, respondent No. 3 tiled an appeal The Tribunal vide its order dated September 3. 1991 (a copy of the order has been placed on record as Annexure P-3) accepted the appeal and granted the permit to respondent No. 3. The petitioner challenged this order before this Court
through; C. W P. No. 473 of 1992. A Division Bench of this Court found that the appeal was accepted in the absence of the counsel for the petitioner and that it had no opportunity to rebut the evidence produced by respondent No. 3. Accordingly, the case was remitted to the Tribunal for fresh decision in accordance with law. A copy of the order passed by the Division Bench is on the record as Annexure P-4. The petitioner then produced the evidence. The Tribunal decided the matter afresh after considering the evidence produced on behalf of the petitioners. However, it found no reason to change the order passed by it on September 3, 1991. Accordingly, it upheld the grant of the permit to respondent No. 3. Aggrieved by this order, the Pepsu Road, Transport Corporation alongwith another have fifed the present petition, A copy of this order has been produced as Annexure P-8 with this petition.
3. A written statement has been filed on behalf of respondent No. 3. It has been inter alia averred that inspire of the grant of an opportunity, the petitioners have not been able to prove that they had ever operated on the route in question. It has been further averred that the respondent had made huge investment in the shape of purchase of chassis on January 2, 1992, and as such, the claim made by the petitioner cannot be sustained. It has been further averred that a perusal of the notice inviting applications completely demolished the claim of the petitioner that at it is a monopoly route and in that situation no application could be invited for the said route from the general public. This notice completely estops the petitioner from raising such a plea”. Various other grounds raised on behalf of the petitioner have also been controverted.
4. The petitioners have raised a number of grounds in the writ petition. However, Mr. Raman Mahajan, learned counsel for the petitioners has raised only two arguments at the hearing. It has been contended by the learned counsel that the finding of the Tribunal that the petitioner is net operating on Dharamgarh-Chandigarh route is contrary to the evidence on record. It has been further contended that the route in question is an inter-State route. According to the learned counsel, the petitioners were entitled to preference and respondent No. 3 could not have been granted a permit to operate thereon. The contentions have been controverted by the learned counsel for respondent No. 3.
5. A perusal of the notice dated June 13,1988 issued by the State Transport Commissioner shows that applications were invited for the grant of a regular stage carriage permit on Dharamgarh-Chandigarh route. It was in response to this notice that the petitioners as well as respondent No. 3 had submitted their applications. Consequently, the authorities had to consider the claims of various applicants for the Dharamgarh-Chandigarh route only. The petitioner claims that it had been operating on this route. Is it so ?
6. ‘Route’ has been defined under the 1939 as well as the 1988 Acts to mean “a line of travel which specifies the highway which may be traversed by a motor vehicle between one terminus and another.” The two termini in the present case are Dharamgarh and Chandigarh. The petitioners have been admittedly operating from Budhlada to Chandigarh. Dharamgarh certainly falls on the way. But in case of a bus running from Budhlada to Chandigarh, Dharamgarh is not a terminus. It is only one of the stations that falls on the way. In case of an operator who starts the bus at Budhlada and terminates the journey at Chandigarh or vice versa, it cannot be said that Dharamgarh and Chandigarh are the two termini.
7. The competent authority has considered the needs of the travelling public and decided that a stage carriage permit should be granted for Dharamgarh-Chandigarh route which has been assigned the number 463. The action of the authority is symbolic of the fact that there is enough number of passengers travelling on the route viz. Dharamgarh to Chandigarh. This is the rationale even behind the definition of a route as given in Section 2. It signifies that a bus starting from Dharamgarh should go upto Chandigarh and vice versa.
8. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the need is served even when a bus starts from Budhlada. He contends that it is on account of the availability of the parking and other facilities that the petitioners start the Bus from Budhlada. The contention, however, loses sight of the fact that the sanctioned route is Dharmgarh-Chandigarh and not Budhlada-Chandigarh. A bus which starts at Budhlada may be fully packed at that station itself. On reaching Dharamgarh it may have no seats or atleast the number of seats may not be adequate. The purpose of sanctioning the route would thus be completely defeated. If a bus operates on Amritsar-Delhi Via Chandigarh route, it cannot be said that the needs of the passengers travelling from Chandigarh to Dalhi are fully met by the operator. Similar is the position in the present case. The contention raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner completely defeats the rationale behind the sanctioning of the route as also the legislative intent. In view of the above, the first contention raised on behalf of the petitioner is rejected.
9. This brings me to the second contention raised on behalf of the petitioner. Mr. Mahajan contended that Dharamgarh-Chandigarh is an inter-State route and in view of the provisions of Section 47 (1-H) the petitioner was entitled to the grant of a permit on preferential basis. Such a contention does not appear to have been raised before the Tribunal in so many words. Be that as it may, the fact remains that under clause (1-H) of Section 47, a State Transport Undertaking is only entitled to preference over other applicants. The question of preference can arise only when the two are equally placed. In the present case, the Tribunal has found that respondent No. 3 is “eminently suited for the grant of this route permit”. It has further found that the petitioner “is not operating on that route and it is not in a position to run on that route, even after the grant of the regular stage carriage permit, it has not operated on the route so far”. If in spite of the grant of a permit the petitioner has not been able to operate on the route in question, it cannot complain of any violation of Section 47 (l-H).
10. Accordingly, there is no merit in this petition which is dismissed. In the circumstances of the case, the parties are left to bear their own costs.