IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTIETH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 23465 of 2005 Between: The Joint Transport Commissioner and Secretary State Transport Authority Sri Burgula Ramakrishna Rao Office Buildings Tank Bund Road Hyderabad. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 P. Nagabhushana Rao Rekhana Street Parlakhimundi Gajapathi Dist., Orissa State. 2 The State Transport Appellate Tribunal Manorajnan Complex, M.J.Road, Nampally A.P., Hyderabad- 500 001 Rep. by its Presiding Officer. ....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner: AGP FOR TRANSPORT Counsel for respondent No.1: MR T.VENKATA RAMANA Counsel for respondent No.2: None appeared The Court made the following : O R D E R: A short and interesting question that arises for consideration in this writ petition is whether after countersigning the permit granted by the primary authority, the countersigning authority can exercise the power under Section 88(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short “the 1988 Act”), to vary the conditions of permit. Respondent No.1 was granted a stage carriage permit on interstate route Parlakhimundi to Berhampur via Palasa, Ambugam, Sompeta and Ichapuram by the State Transport Authority (for short “STA”), Andhra Pradesh. The said permit was countersigned by the STA, Orissa in the year 1976. Since then, respondent No.1 has been plying his vehicle on the said route. Much after the grant of permit and countersignature by the primary and countersigning authorities respectively, respondent No.1 approached the STA, Orissa with an application for revision of timings. The said authority allowed the said application and sent the same to the petitioner-STA, Andhra Pradesh to countersign the revised timings. The petitioner vide its letter dated 12-01-2004 informed the Secretary of STA, Orissa that the latter is not the competent authority to revise the timings. Thereupon, respondent No.1 ﬁled W.P.No.14538 of 2004 in this Court for a direction to the petitioner to countersign the revised timings granted by the STA, Orissa. This Court, by order dated 17-08-2004, disposed of the said writ petition directing the petitioner to pass appropriate orders on the petition ﬁled by respondent No.1 in accordance with the Rules. The petitioner accordingly passed order on 25- 09-2004, rejecting respondent No.1’s application for countersignature of revision of timings. Feeling aggrieved by the said order, respondent No.1 ﬁled R.P.No.273 of 2004 before respondent No.2, which, by its order dated 25-08-2005, impugned in this writ petition, allowed the said revision. Heard the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Transport and Sri T.Venkata Ramana, learned counsel for respondent No.1, and perused the record. In its order, dated 25-09-2004, passed by the petitioner, it is stated that the stage carriage permit on the interstate route, in question, was granted by the petitioner authority and that since the petitioner is the permit granting authority, there is no question of its countersigning the revision of timings granted by the Secretary of STA, Orissa, who is the only countersigning authority. Respondent No.2, in its order, purported to rely on the Full Bench judgment of this Court in K.Pamanna vs. The State Transport Appellate Tribunal, A.P and others[1], in allowing the revision. I have carefully gone through the said judgment. One of the questions that arose for consideration in the said judgment was whether the general power to vary the conditions of permit conferred on the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) under Section 48(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (for short “the 1939 Act”) could be exercised by the STA in respect of permits, which were granted by the latter. The Full Bench drawing the analogy of the said provision held that the speciﬁc conferral of power on RTA under Section 48(3) of the 1939 Act, which is reﬂected in Section 88(3) of the 1988 Act, does not result in exclusion of the power of the STA to vary the conditions of a permit, which is incidental to the main power of granting the permit. But the issue identical to the one raised in this writ petition has not fallen for consideration of or decided by the Full Bench. Therefore, respondent No.2 committed a grievous error in relying upon the said judgment as the authority for the proposition that even a countersigning authority has power to vary the timings like a primary authority has. Section 88(3) of the 1988 Act as interpreted by the Full Bench (supra), empowers only the RTA or the STA to attach to the permit any conditions which it might have imposed if it had granted the permit and may revise any conditions attached to the permit of the authority by which the permit was granted at the time of countersigning the permit only. In the instant case, countersigning was done by the STA, Orissa, around the year 1976, and much water had ﬂown under the bridge since then. It is, therefore, not permissible for the countersigning authority to embark upon variation of the conditions of permit much after it has countersigned the permit by virtually reducing the primary authority to the status of a countersigning authority. Even in the absence of a speciﬁc provision under the Act, it is only the primary authority, which granted the permit that alone has the power and jurisdiction to vary the conditions subject, however, to the power of the countersigning authority to countersign such a variation. In this view of the matter, the order of respondent No.2 suffers from a patent error. Therefore, the impugned order is set aside and the writ petition is allowed. This order, however, does not preclude respondent No.1 from approaching the petitioner with an application for variation of conditions of permit with regard to the timings. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Dated 20th August, 2008 vrn [1] 1992 (2) ALT 385 (FB)