Appeal No 284 of 1958
Appeal from the judgment and order dated April 21 1956 of the former Judicial Commissioner s Court Rewa in Misc
Civil Writ No 27 of 1956
Naunit Lal for the appellant
694 Bhagwan Das Jain for respondent No 1 1959
April 21
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by SARKAR J
This appeal arises out of an application for a writ of certiorari and involves questions of interpretation of the 4 of 1939 by
which grants of permits to run stage carriages and all matters connected therewith are governed
The appellant was the holder of a permit to run a stage carriage on a stretch of the public highway called the Rewa Singrauli route in the State of Vindhya Pradesh which is now merged in the State of Madhya Pradesh
That permit was due to expire on December 11 1955 and so on September 12 1955 he made an application for its renewal for a further period
The respondent Anant Prasad who will be referred to as the respondent made a representation against the renewal of the appellant s permit
He also applied for the grant of the permit to himself
On December 9 1955 the State Transport Authority Vindhya Pradesh made an order in the following terms  Renewed for three years 
It is not in dispute that the order meant that the appellant s permit was renewed for three years
No express order was made on the respondent s application for the grant of the permit to him
The respondent preferred an appeal against this order to the Vindhya Pradesh Transport Appellate Tribunal the appellate authority under the Act
It was contended by the appellant before the Appellate Tribunal that the appeal was not competent
The Appellate Tribunal rejected this contention and passed an order cancelling the Permit granted to the appellant by the State Transport Authority and issuing the permit to the respondent
The appellant then moved the Judicial Commissioner Vindhya Pradesh for a writ of certiorari quashing the order of the Appellate Tribunal on the ground that it disclosed an error on the face of it because under the Act no appeal lay from the order that was passed by the subordinate authority
The learned Judicial Commissioner held that the appeal 695 was competent and dismissed the application for the writ
Hence the present appeal
The question is Did an appeal lie to the Appellate Tribunal from the order made by the State Transport Authority in the present case  Section 64 of the Act contains the provisions for appeals
Whether the appeal lay or not will have to be decided by reference to these provisions
The portion of the section which will have to be considered is in these terms  Section 64
Any person a aggrieved by the refusal of the State or a Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit   or e aggrieved by the refusal of renewal of a permit or f being a local authority or police authority or an association which or a person providing transport facilities who having opposed the grant of a permit is aggrieved by the grant thereof    may   appeal to the prescribed authority The prescribed authority was as we have earlier stated the Appellate Tribunal
Clearly the respondent was not a person contemplated by cl
e of the section
It is also not in dispute that he was not one of those mentioned in cl
The respondent does not claim that any of these clauses gave him the right of appeal
He however claims a right of appeal under cl
In our view that claim is justified
He had applied for a permit and had not got it
He was therefore a person aggrieved by the refusal to grant a permit and clearly came within cl
It is true that the order of the State Transport Authority did not expressly refuse him the permit
But that no doubt was the effect of the order that was made
He had made an application for the grant of the permit to him and the application was disposed of without granting him the permit but granting it to a competing applicant
There was only one permit which could be granted 696 and the result of the order was to give it to the appellant
The permit was thereby necessarily refused to the respondent
The fact that an express order was not made cannot operate to his prejudice
In section Gopala Reddi vs Regional Transport Authority North Arcot 1 in circumstances identical to those in the present case an order was made by the Transport Authority in the same terms as we have here and it was said  The grant of a permit to one would automatically mean the refusal of the permit to the other 
We are in entire agreement with the view expressed there
Therefore it seems to us that the respondent was a person who had been aggrieved by the refusal to grant him a permit and the appeal by him was fully competent
But it was said on behalf of the appellant that in the present case it would be wrong to imply an order refusing the permit to the respondent for none such could be made under the Act and therefore here there was no scope for applying section 64a
The contention was put in this way When there are a number of applications in respect of the same permit one of which is by way of renewal to which objections have been filed and the others fresh applications the latter could not be taken up for consideration till the former and the objections made to it had been considered
If the objections to the renewal failed the application for renewal had to be granted and the fresh applications for permit could not then be considered at all
If on the other hand the objections to the renewal succeeded the renewal could not be granted and the choice had then to be made from the new applicants for the permit
In the present case the objection to the renewal of the applicant s permit raised by the respondent failed and the appellant s permit was in consequence renewed
Therefore the respondent s application for a permit which was an application for a new permit never fell to be considered and that is why no order on it was made at all
We think this contention completely lacks substance
It was said that was the result of sections 47 1 697 57 and 58 of the Act but we find nothing in any of them to support it
Section 47 does not deal with the order in which applications for the renewal or grant on a new permit are to be heard and does not help at all Section 57 3 provides that after an application for a permit had been made others can make representations against it
These are the objections to an application for the grant or renewal of a permit earlier referred to
Sub section 5 of section 57 provides that the application for a permit which includes an application for the renewal of a permit and the representations against it shall be disposed of at a public hearing at which the person making the application and the persons making the representations shall be given an opportunity of being heard
But this does not show that all other applications for the same permit and all other repre sentations in connection therewith cannot be disposed of at the same hearing
Indeed section 58 2 puts it beyond doubt that an application for renewal of a permit and the fresh applications for the same permit have to be heard together
That section so far as is relevant is in these terms Section 58 2 A permit may be renewed on an application made and disposed of as if it were an application for a permit a          b         
Provided further that other conditions being equal an application for renewal shall be given preference over new applications for permits 
The section therefore requires an application for the renewal of a permit to be dealt with in the same way as a new application for a permit
Such an application has therefore to be heard along with new applications for the permit
Again no question of giving an application for renewal preference over new applications for permits which the section requires to be given can arise unless they are considered together
We are therefore unable to hold that in the present case the 88 698 State Transport Authority had no jurisdiction to consider the respondent s application or to make any order in respect of it as it granted the appellant s application for renewal
It follows that the order that was made amounted in fact to a refusal to grant the permit to the respondent
It was then said that a renewed permit was a continuation of the old permit and hence once the old permit was renewed no question of considering the applications for new permit arose
We find nothing to support this view
It is true that in V C K Bus Service Ltd vs Regional Transport Authority Coimbatore1 this Court held that a renewed permit was a continuation of the old permit but it did not hold that the appropriate authority could not consider the applications for a fresh permit along with the application for renewal of the permit
This case does not assist the appellant at all
It was then contended that section 64 did not provide for an appeal by a person aggrieved by the renewal of a permit unless he was one of those mentioned in section 64 f which the respondent was not and therefore even if an appeal by the respondent was competent under section 64 a in such an appeal the Appellate Tribunal could not set aside the order of renewal made by the State Transport Authority
It was said that if in such an appeal the order granting a renewal could be set aside in effect an appeal against an order renewing a permit would become competent though the law did not per mit this
We were referred to Dholpur Co operative Transport Etc
Union Ltd vs The Appellate Authority Rajasthan 2 in support of this contention
It was there said  Where an appeal has been made under el
aagainst the refusal of a permit the Appellate Authority will generally have the right to give relief to the appellant by the grant of a permit but will not have any jurisdiction to cancel the permit granted to another person unless a foundation has been laid before the Regional Transport Authority for an appeal provided 1 2 AIR  26
699 by el
f by an objection of somebody entitled to appeal under that clause
If such an objection has been made then it does not matter whether that particular person appeals or not
In such a case on an appeal under section 64a the Appellate Authority may consider the objection of the nature specified in cl
f before the Regional Transport Authority and give its own decision in the matter
 It was said that the respondent though he had filed objections was not a person who can claim a right of appeal under el
f of section 64
It was therefore contended on the authority of the observations referred to above that no foundation had been laid for an appeal provided by cl
f and so the Appellate Tribunal could not cancel the permit granted to the appellant by the subordinate authority
We are unable to agree that in an appeal which is competent under cl
a of the section the order renewing or granting a permit cannot be set aside unless the case was such that an appeal under el
f would have also been competent
So to hold would result in making the right of appeal given by cl
a wholly infructuous in those cases where no relief can be given in the appeal except by setting aside the order granting or renewing a permit for example where there was only one permit to grant as in the present case
Such an interpretation has to be rejected
It is based on cl
But this clause cannot be construed in a manner so as to render infructuous another clause in the same section
Nor do we find anything in el
f to justify such a construc tion
The different clauses in the section deal with different situations
Each is independent of the others
Clause f deals with a case where an objection had been filed against the fresh grant or the renewal of a permit but the permit has none the less been granted or renewed
The clause gives the objector a right of appeal against the result of the rejection of his objection if he is one of the persons mentioned in it
The clause gives him that right irrespective of the fact whether he has a right of appeal under any of the other clauses or not
It does not say that a permit granted or renewed cannot be questioned except at the 700 instance of the persons mentioned in cl
f it does not affect the right of appeal under the other clauses
If an appeal lies under any of the other clauses that of course must be an effective appeal and the appellate authority must therefore have all powers to give the relief to which the appellant is found entitled
Again section 64 is not concerned with defining the powers of the appellate authority and does not purport to do so
Nor is there anything in the Act to lead to the conclusion that an applicant for a permit is bound to put in objections against the applications of competing applicants for the grant or the renewal of the permit
The relief that can be granted in an appeal by any person which is competent would not depend on whether he bad put in objections against the applications of the competing applicants or not
We do not therefore think that cl
f of section 64 in any way restricts the power of the Appellate Tribunal to grant all proper reliefs in an appeal competent under el
a of the section
If cl
f does not so restrict the power of the Appellate Tribunal nothing else has been pointed out to us as having that effect
In our view there is nothing in the Act to prevent the Appellate Tribunal from setting aside the order of the State Transport Authority renewinu the appellant s permit
We think the matter was correctly put in section Gopala Reddi s case 1 when it was said at p 132 The appeal was in our opinion perfectly competent as an appeal against the order of the Regional Transport Authority refusing to grant a permit
The fact that such an appeal involved an attack on the order granting a renewal of a permit to the 4th respondent would not prevent the appeal being what it was viz an appeal against a refusal to grant a permit to the appellant
The Central Road Traffic Board erred in presuming that it was not open to them in the appeal to consider the merits of the order granting renewal of the 4th respondent s permit
Indeed the first question which had to be determined in the appeal filed by the appellant would be the propriety of the action of the Regional Transport Authority in granting 1 701 renewal to the 4th respondent
The filing of the appeal by the appellant set at large the order of the Regional Transport Authority granting the renewal
 In the Dholpur Co operative Transport etc
Union Ltd case  on which the appellant relies no objection had been filed against any of the competing applications for the grant of a permit and it was held that the appellate authority had no power in such circumstances on appeal by a person whose application for the grant of the permit had been refused to give relief by cancelling a permit granted by the subordinate authority to one of the applicants
It was there thought that Nadar Transport Tiruchirapalli vs State of Madras 2 led to this conclusion
For the reasons earlier mentioned we are unable to agree with this part of the decision in the Dholpur Co operative Transport etc
Union Ltd case 1
With the rest of the decision there we are not concerned and as to that we do not say anything
We also find nothing in the Nadar Transport case 2 to support the conclusion arrived at in Dholpur Co operative Transport etc
Union Ltd case1
In the Nadar Transport case2 on the contrary it was observed that  see
64 sub sees
a and f are intended in our opinion to apply to different situations  and that  the power of the appellate authority is not restricted in any manner either by the provisions of section 64 or by any of the rules made under the powers conferred by the Act 
It was there held that in an appeal under section 64 a no grounds other than those taken before the lower authority could be canvassed
That does not lead to the conclusion that on proper grounds all reliefs necessary to make the appeal effective cannot be granted
We think that the Nadar Transport case 2 was misunderstood
The result is that this appeal fails and it is dismissed with costs
Appeal dismissed
1 A I R  26
2 A I R  3


Summary:
Sub sec
3 of section 2 of the Contempt of Courts Act 1926 excludes the jurisdiction of the High Court to take cognisance of a contempt alleged to have been committed in respect of a Court subordinate to it only in cases where the acts alleged to constitute contempt are punishable as con tempt under specific provisions of the Indian Penal Code but not where these acts merely amount to offences of other description for which punishment has been provided for in the Indian Penal Code
The fact that defamation of a judge of a subordinate Court constitutes an offence under sec
499 of the Indian Penal Code does not therefore oust the jurisdiction of the High Court to take cognisance of the act as a contempt of court
Defamatory statements about the conduct of a judge even in respect of his judicial duties do not necessarily consti tute contempt of Court
It is only when the defamation is calculated to obstruct or interfere with the due course of justice or proper administration of justice that it amounts to contempt
Kisan Krishna Ji vs Nagpur Conference of Society of St Vincent de Paul AIR 1943 Nag
334 disapproved
VM Bason vs AH Skone LR explained
Subordi nate Judge
First Class Hoshangabad vs Jawaharlal AIR  Narayan Chandra vs Panchu Pramanick A L R  Naresh Kumar vs Umaromal AIR 1951 Cal 489 Kaulashia vs Emperor ILR 12 Pat 1 State vs Brahma Prakash AIR 1950 All 556 Emperor vs Jagannath AIR 1938 All
358 Bennet Colman vs CS Monga ILR approved