IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. C.W.P. No.19077 of 2007 Date of decision: 23.10.2008 Pepsu Road Transport Corporation, Patiala. -----Petitioner Vs. State Transport Appellate Tribunal and others. -----Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR JUSTICE ADARSH KUMAR GOEL HON'BLE MR JUSTICE L.N. MITTAL Present:- Mr. R.S. Sharma, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Piyush Kant Jain, Addl.A.G., Punjab. Mr. Baldev Kapoor, Advocate for respondent No.3. ----- ORDER: Respondent No.3 applied for curtailment of route from Budhlada to Bathinda via Mansa, Maur, Kot Shamir and for increase of return trips from one to two. The State Transport Commissioner allowed the same. The said order has been affirmed on appeal by the Tribunal. Only contention raised in the writ petition is that the State Transport Commissioner should have granted fresh permit instead of permitting increase in the number of trips on the same route. We are unable to accept the submission. The appellate authority, after considering the above submission, recorded the following finding:- C.W.P. No.19077 of 2007 “...Respondent No.2 applied for the curtailment of the route from Budhlada to Bathinda via Mansa, Maur, Kot Shamir and for the increase of return trips of the remaining route from one to two and the authority expressed its satisfaction that the curtailment will not affect traveling public on the curtailment portion and that because of the improvement in the law and order in the state flow of the traffic originating from the station of the varied route has gone very thick but the services have not been increased correspondingly and therefore, a lot of inconvenience is being experienced by the traveling public. Therefore, the authority has taken into account the entire aspects of the matter in the passing of the impugned order.” Learned counsel for respondent No.3 supports the impugned orders by pointing out that under Section 80(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, application for increase in return trips amounts to an application for fresh permit and once the authority is satisfied about the need for increase in the return trips, it was implicit that there was no need for giving fresh permit. It was submitted that in any case, the State Transport Commissioner has the jurisdiction, at any stage, to consider any fresh arrangement. In view of above, we do not find any ground to interfere with the impugned orders. The petition is dismissed. ( ADARSH KUMAR GOEL ) JUDGE October 23, 2008 ( L. N. MITTAL ) ashwani JUDGE 2