IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.16659 of 2009 SUBODH KUMAR RAI, son of Sri Bhagwan Rai, resident of village-English Farka, P.O. and P.S.-Sabour, District-Bhagalpur. ……Petitioner Versus 1. The State Of Bihar through its Secretary, Department of Transport, Bihar, Patna. 2. The Chairman, State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Bihar, Patna. 3. The Chairman, East Bihar Regional Transport Authority, Bhagalpur. 4. The Secretary, East Bihar Regional Transport Authority, Bhagalpur 5. Pankaj Yadav, Son of Sri Chote Lal Yadav, Resident of village-English Farka, P.O. and P.S.-Sabour, District-Bhagalpur. ……..Respondents. ----------- 03. 21.12.2009 An application for grant of temporary permit was made by the Respondent No. 5 in terms of Annexure-2. Objections came to be raised by the petitioner before the Regional Transport Authority but despite objection an order for grant of temporary permit for a period of four months came to be issued on the recommendation of the Secretary which was put up before the Commissioner and the Commissioner put his signature and date on the said recommendation. When Annexure-6 came to be issued petitioner also decided to challenge that order by way of revision but the revision came to be dismissed by cryptic order dated 10.11.2009 by the Chairman upholding the decision of the Regional Transport Authority and also holding that the ratio and the principle relied by the petitioner in the case of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation versus K. Venkataramireddy and 2 others since reported in 1971(3) SCC 803 has no application. In the present writ application therefore Annexure-5 as well as Annexure-7 are under challenge. It is stated at the bar that the order granting temporary permit to the private respondent is in the teeth of two decisions one is Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport versus K. Venkataramireddy and others 1971(3) SCC 803 as well as a division Bench decision of this Court rendered in the case of Kishori Lall Sahu versus the Chairman, North Bihar Regional Transport Authority, Muzaffarpur and another AIR PATNA 1981 14. The relevant paragraph relied in this regard is paragraph 4 of 1971(3) SCC 803 which is quoted hereunder for ready reference. “4. In the application which was filed by the appellant for grant of the temporary permits in Form 32 which has been prescribed with reference to Rule 126(a) (vi) of the Rules no purpose has been indicated against item No. 4 which requires the purposes to be indicated for which the stage carriage permit is required. A letter was addressed by the appellant to the Secretary, State Transport Authority, on August 24, 1966. Even in that letter the purpose or the reason for the issue of a temporary permit was not stated. In our opinion it is wholly futile to go into any of the points which were agitated before the learned Single Judge and the division bench of the 3 High Court. There can be no manner of doubt that in the absence of any purpose or reason for which temporary permits were asked for the Regional Transport Authority should have dismissed the application in limini because a temporary permit can be granted only if the permit is required for the purposes or reasons mentioned from (a) to (d) in Section 62 of the Act. In spite of every effort on the part of the learned counsel for the appellant to look for any document which would fulfil the requirement of a valid application under Section 62 nothing could be shown to us which would indicate the purpose for which the appellant asked for the grant of temporary permit.” AIR 1981 PATNA 14 PARA 5 “5. Having heard learned counsel for the parties, we are satisfied that the order for grant of the temporary stage carriage permit(Annexure „2‟) suffers from the lacuna pointed out by Mr. Amla Kanta Choudhuri. The Secretary, in his notes, has not pointed out as to under which clause of Section 62 of the Act the grant of temporary stage carriage permit was sought for or was justified, though some relevant facts have been mentioned in this regard. The Chairman also has simply signed below the notes of the Secretary. This is hardly sufficient to show that he applied his mind in regard to the grant of the temporary permit. The matter in question, being quasi-judicial, could hardly be disposed of in the manner as done by the Chairman of the Transport 4 Authority.(emphasis mine) Under the circumstances, we have no alternative left, but to quash the order of grant of the temporary stage carriage permit. The authorities should be careful in this regard while granting such permits and should specify the particular public need on which ground such permits are granted and should dispose of such applications in accordance with law.” The law being laid down in unambiguous term in the two decisions the petitioner has succeeded in making out the case for quashing Annexure-5 as well as Annexure- 7. The High Court also fails to understand as to how the Chairman of the Appellate Tribunal has come to record that the case law cited by the petitioner or the decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court is not applicable to the present facts of the case. Either the learned Chairman has not read the decision or he failed to understand the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. Learned counsel representing private respondent submits that there could be some error with regard to filling up of the form with regard to temporary permit. The basic objections which were raised before the authorities are related to the timings. In totality interference by Court would effect the interest of people in general, who are the beneficiary. But the decision rendered by the quasi judicial authorities are in teeth of law and de-horse the decisions 5 referred to in the earlier part of the order. The Court has not option but to quash the impugned orders. The writ application stands allowed. Shageer (Ajay Kumar Tripathi, J)