Civil Appeal No 424 1971
Appeal from the Judgment and Order dated the 22 2 1971 of Madras High Court in WP No 3125 of 1970
M Natesan and Mrs
section Gopalakrishanan for the Appel lant
KS Ramamurthi A TM Sampath MML Srivastava and ECAgarwala 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 879 marks and the re spondent 1208
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 SCI76 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 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
PHP Appeal dis missed


Summary:
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