IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.15496 of 2010 JYOTISH CHANDRA JHA, son of late Kartik Jha, village Shyampur, P.S. Rajaun, District Banka ... Petitioner Versus 1. THE STATE OF BIHAR through Principal Secretary, Transport, Visheshwariya Bhawan, Patna 2. The Transport Commissioner, Government of Bihar, Patna 3. The Joint Transport Commissioner, Government of Bihar, Patna 4. The District Transport Officer, Bhagalpur 5. District Transport Officer, Bhagalpur The District Magistrate, Bhagalpur 6. Shyam Rajak, Enforcement Sub-Inspector, Transport Department, Government of Bihar, Patna ... Respondents ----------- 3. 7.12.2010 This writ petition has been filed for a direction to the respondent District Transport Officer, Bhagalpur to release the Jeep taxi of the petitioner for which an appeal was filed in pursuance of the order of the Division Bench of this Court in C.W.J.C.No. 1993/2007 dated 9.3.2007, which is enclosed as Annexure 3 to the writ petition. The perusal of the aforesaid order goes to show that the Division Bench has given liberty to the petitioner to file an appeal before the appropriate authority. Learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that due to inadvertence such appeal has 2 been filed before the Commissioner of Transport and the same has remained unanswered till today and therefore, the petitioner has suffered a lot of irreparable loss ad the vehicle in question has not been released so far. A counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of the respondents which has been sworn by the District Transport Officer, Bhagalpur in which it is stated that no appeal has been filed by the petitioner and he had also not applied for exemption of road tax on any ground before any authority as provided under section 19 of the Bihar Motor Vehicle Taxation Act read with Rule 15 framed thereunder. The learned counsel for the petitioner has however produced a Challan dated 7.8.2008 of Rs. 120/- in support of his contention that an appeal had been filed before the Commissioner of Transport and the same had remained unanswered till today. In view of aforesaid rival contradictory contentions raised before us, this Court would find it appropriate to accord liberty to the petitioner to file a 3 fresh appeal before the Regional Transport Officer, Bhagalpur within two weeks from today with a copy of the appeal which is purported to have been filed on 7th March, 2008 before the Commissioner of Transport. In the event the petitioner would file such fresh appeal the same should be disposed of within a period of four weeks from the date of filing of the appeal after giving an opportunity of hearing to the appellant/ petitioner herein, subject to passing of any final order of confiscation. In default, he must release the vehicle of the petitioner within a period of six weeks in accordance with law. With the aforementioned observation and direction, this application is disposed of. (T.Meena Kumari,J.) (Mihir Kumar Jha,J.) Surendra/