PETITIONER:
CUMBUM ROADWAYS (P) LTD.
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
BALAGURU BUS SERVICE PVT. LTD. & ORS.
DATE OF JUDGMENT10/12/1976
BENCH:
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
RAY, A.N. (CJ)
BEG, M. HAMEEDULLAH
CITATION:
1977 AIR 1563 1977 SCR (2) 407
1977 SCC (1) 440
ACT
Motor Vehicles Act 1939 and Motor Vehicles Rules--Whether
consideration of grace, charity and compassion can be taken
into account while granting permits- Whether a candidate
getting lesser marks can be preferred.
HEADNOTE
The appellant and the respondent applied for a permit of
stage carriages. The respondent secured higher marks than
the appellant. The Road Transport Authority preferred the
appellant on the compassionate ground that the respondent
already had another permit on a route which was partly
over-lapping over the route in question. On an appeal the
Appellate Tribunal set aside the order of the Transport
Authority and granted the permit to the respondent.
Dismissing the appeal,
HELD: Permits cannot be equated with distribution of
patronage. Public interest is at stake when public trans-
port services are operated. The scheme of the Motor Vehi-
cles Act and the Rules is that he who can serve the travel-
ling public best is to be chosen as the permit-holder.
Considerations of grace, charity and compassion at the
expense of public interest are an act of unfairness to the
Act. [408B-C]
JUDGMENT
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 424
1971.
Appeal from the Judgment and Order dated the 22-2-1971
of Madras High Court in W.P. No. 3125 of 1970.
M. Natesan, and (Mrs). S. Gopalakrishanan, for the Appel-
lant.
K.S. Ramamurthi, A. T.M. Sampath, M.M.L. Srivastava and
E.C.Agarwala, for Respondent No. 1.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
KRISHNA IYER, J.--This appeal, without any
merit, deserves to be dismissed without much ado.
The few facts of the case are that the appellant and the
respondent, both operators Of stage carriages, applied for a
permit on an 86 Km. route. Marks were awarded to both under
the relevant Motor Vehicles Rules to settle their compara-
tive merit. The appellant secured 8.79 marks and the re-
spondent 12.08. The latter thus secured an easy arithmeti-
cal victory over the former and the sense of the scheme
would have ordinarily led to the award of the permit to the
respondent. However, the Road Transport Authority preferred
the candidate with the lesser marks on the compassionate
ground that the rival with the larger marks had already got
a permit a couple of months before, on an overlapping route
of 53 Km. On appeal, the Appellate Tribunal set aside this
award and granted
10--1546 SCI/76
408
the permit to the one who had more merit. This has been
affirmed throughout, repelling the challenge by writ peti-
tion. The aggrieved appellant contends that his permit
should not have been set aside, the ground being that the
respondent had got an earlier permit on a part of the route.
We are not persuaded about this ground being good.
Permits cannot be equated with distribution of patron-
age. We must remember that public interest is at stake when
public transport services are operated. The scheme of the
statute, viz., the Motor Vehicles Act is that he who can
serve the travelling public best, is to be chosen as the
permit holder. Considerations of grace, charity and compas-
sion at the expense of public interest are an act of
unfairness to the Act. The conclusion, therefore is that
the appellant’s claim was rightly rejected and the respond-
ent’s award was rightly made.
We dismiss the appeal but in the circumstances without
costs.
P.H.P. Appeal dis-
missed.
409