IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE TENTH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, TWO THOUSAND EIGHT ONLY PRESENT: THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.9451 of 2001 Between: Smt. A. Hussaina Begum (died) & others. … Petitioners AND The State Transport Appellate Tribunal, A.P., Hyderabad, rep., by its Presiding Officer & others. … Respondents Counsel for petitioner No.3 : Sri Nousad Ali for Smt. Y.B. Saraswathi Counsel for respondents 2&3: AGP for Transport Counsel for respondents 5&6: Sri T. enkataramana This Court made the following: THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.9451 of 2001 ORDER:- This writ petition is filed for a writ of Certiorari to quash order dated 24.11.2000 in R.P.No.42 of 1999 and A.P.No.176 of 1989 passed by respondent No.1. This case has a long history of at least 25 years. The petitioners who are presently pursuing this writ petition succeeded to the original permit holder. For the sake of convenience the original permit holder is referred to as the petitioner. The petitioner was holding a pucca permit on the route Itchapuram to Parvathipuram. This was an enclave route as a part of the route was passing through the Orissa State. The original permit expired on 03.06.1979. Litigation ensued thereafter in the matter of granting permits. By resolution dated 11.03.1981, the Regional Transport Authority, Srikakulam (for short, ‘the RTA’) directed grant of temporary permit to the petitioner to ply his idle bus till a pucca permit was granted afresh. On 09.11.1987, approved scheme on the route in question was notiﬁed. It saved holders of the existing stage carriage permits on the interstate route covered by the approved scheme. When renewal of permit in favour of the petitioner was rejected by order dated 06.09.1989 of the RTA, Srikakulam, the petitioner ﬁled appeal, which was registered as A.P.176 of 1989 before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal, Hyderabad, respondent No.1, (for short, ‘the Tribunal’). Against an interim order, refusing to grant directions to issue temporary permit, the petitioner ﬁled a writ petition. It is not necessary to refer to those proceedings in the present context. A.P.176 of 1989 was dismissed by respondent No.1 on 14.08.1996. The petitioner ﬁled WP.No.17234 of 1996 against the said order in this Court. WP.No.24073 of 1996, also ﬁled by the petitioner against the order of respondent No.1 refusing to grant temporary permit pending A.P.176 of 1989 was heard along with WP.No.17234 of 1996 by this Court and by a common order dated 08.07.1997, the said two writ petitions were disposed of. While WP.No.24073 of 1996 was dismissed as infructuous with the disposal of AP.No.176 of 1989, WP.No.17234 of 1996 was disposed of by permitting the petitioner to apply for a fresh permit. The petitioner ﬁled WA.No.961 of 1997 against order in WP.No.24073 of 1996. Respondent No.5 ﬁled WA.No.1010 of 1997 and Sri P. Dharma Raju, an objector, ﬁled WA.No.1014 of 1997 against the order in WP.No.17234 of 1996. The said three writ appeals were disposed of by a common order of the Division Bench of this Court on 07.11.1997 with the direction to respondent No.1 to record a ﬁnding whether pucca or temporary permit was held by the petitioner as on the relevant date, namely, 09.11.1987 when the scheme was notiﬁed. Subsequently, on 06.02.1999, the State Transport Authority of A.P. (for short, ‘the STA’) granted pucca permit to the petitioner. Respondent No.5 ﬁled RP.No.42 of 1999 against the said order. Respondent No.1 allowed the said revision on 07.12.1999. The petitioner ﬁled WP.No.26250 of 1999 against the said order and the same was disposed of on 28.07.2000. The learned Judge held that respondent No.1 was justiﬁed in setting aside the permit on the ground that STA failed to take into consideration the directions given by the Division Bench in WA.Nos.1010 and 1014 of 1997. The learned Judge, however, gave direction similar to the one given by the Division Bench to respondent No.1 to dispose of the case afresh and give a ﬁnding as to whether the petitioner was holding pucca or temporary permit as on 09.11.1987. After remand, respondent No.1 clubbed AP.No.176 of 1989 and RP.No.42 of 1999 and passed a common order, which is impugned in this writ petition. By the said order, respondent No.1 held that the evidence available on record was not suﬃcient to hold that the petitioner was holding a pucca or temporary permit as on 09.11.1987. Assailing this order, the petitioner ﬁled the present writ petition. At the hearing, Sri Nousad Ali, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that respondent No.1 committed a serious error in not summoning the record and giving a ﬁnding on the basis of the record. He also submitted that having referred to the evidence adduced by the petitioner, respondent No.1 failed to give speciﬁc ﬁnding thereon while it conveniently referred to and relied on all the documents ﬁled by respondent No.5 in coming to the conclusion that the petitioner was not holding any permit as on 09.11.1987. Opposing the above contentions, Sri T. Venkatramana, learned counsel for respondent No.5 and respondent No. 6, a rival operator and who got impleaded in the writ petition, submitted that the Division Bench, while disposing of the writ appeals, permitted the parties to adduce evidence and therefore the burden lies on the petitioner to prove that as on the relevant date he was holding a permit and that on the basis of the material available before respondent No.1 it has come to the conclusion that there was no evidence to show that the petitioner was holding permit. Learned counsel also relied upon the Judgment of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Syed Yakoob vs. K.S.Radhakrishna and others[1] and contended that while exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, this Court will not re-appreciate the evidence on record and interfere with the ﬁndings of fact recorded by respondent No.1. He made strenuous eﬀorts to convince this Court that the evidence produced by respondent No.5 and the objector clearly showed that the petitioner was not holding any permit as on the relevant date. Learned Assistant Government Pleader for Transport supported the order of respondent No.1 by stating that the ﬁndings of respondent No.1 were passed on the material available before it and therefore there are no grounds to interfere with its well considered order. I have given serious thought to the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties. The task of respondent No.1 was cut out with the Division Bench remanding the matter to it to record a ﬁnding as to whether the petitioner was holding any permit, pucca or temporary on the date of coming into force of the scheme in question. Therefore, as the appellate authority, it is its bounden duty to record the ﬁnding on the basis of the oﬃcial record. While the learned counsel for the petitioner emphatically argued that the Tribunal did not summon the record either from the RTA, Srikakulam or the STA, respondent No.1 has not speciﬁcally stated in its order that records were summoned from the said two authorities and perused the same before passing the impugned order. A proper analysis of the facts indicates that there is a serious dispute as to the question whether the petitioner was holding any permit as on the relevant date. While the petitioner relied on orders dated 11.03.1981 of the RTA, Srikakulam, 07.12.1988 of this Court in WPMP.No.23228 of 1988 in WP.No.18142 of 1988, letter dated 16.11.1988 of the RTO, Srikakulam, proceedings dated 16.09.1989 of the Secretary, RTA, Srikakulam and aﬃdavit dated 12.07.1996 ﬁled by Sri P. Dharma Raju, the objector and petitioner in WP.No.13975 of 1996, respondent No.5 relied on documents such as letter dated 30.07.1997 addressed by the Regional Transport Oﬃcer, Srikakulam and the aﬃdavit ﬁled by the Secretary, RTA, Srikakulam in WP.No.26250 of 1999. Interestingly, respondent No.1, while referring to the set of documents on which the petitioner placed reliance, stated in its order as under: “The learned Advocate appearing for the appellant has ﬁled the material papers during the course of arguments containing pages 1 to 43 and he has been relying upon the aﬃdavit of one Sri P. Dharma Raju page 3 to 7 and the proceedings of the Secretary, RTA and the said documents were already discussed above.” At the hearing, it is admitted by the learned counsel for respondent Nos.5 and 6 that though respondent No.1 stated as above that the said documents were already discussed ‘above’, he has not undertaken any discussion on those documents nor any ﬁnding was given thereon. In contrast, respondent No.1 has gone into letter dated 30.07.1997 and also the aﬃdavit of the Secretary, RTA ﬁled in WP.No.26250 of 1999 to come to the conclusion that the petitioner was not holding any permit. In my considered view, when there are conﬂicting pleas on the basis of certain documents, respondent No.1 ought to have summoned the record and given a ﬁnding with reference to the position obtaining in the record. After all, respondent No.1 is the appellate authority, which is bound to consider each and every document contained in the record before giving ﬁndings on the respective pleas of the parties before it. This responsibility of respondent No.1 has increased with the Division Bench directing it to record a speciﬁc ﬁnding as to whether the petitioner was holding any permit as on the relevant date. Unfortunately, it is evident that respondent No.1 failed to decide the case on the basis of the official record. Sri T. Venkataramana, however, invited my attention to the portion of order of respondent No.1, wherein he stated that “in the record no paper is available to show that after the proceedings dated 11.03.1981, the husband of respondent No.2 was given any temporary permit subsequent to the decision in proceedings dated 11.03.1981 by the Regional Transport Authority, Srikakulam.” While referring to the ‘record’, it is not clear whether respondent No.1 had in mind the record placed before it by the parties or the record, if any, produced by the oﬃcial respondents. Indeed, this ﬁnding of respondent No.1 is contrary to the plea contained in the counter aﬃdavit of respondent No.3 ﬁled in this writ petition, wherein he categorically stated that in pursuance of proceedings dated 11.03.1981, the petitioner was, in fact, granted permits up to 31.01.1984. Whether the permits were granted only up to 31.01.1984 or till 09.11.1987 ought to have been veriﬁed by respondent No.1 on the basis of the oﬃcial record of RTA, Srikakulam and STA, Hyderabad. As regards the judgment of the Supreme Court in Syed Yakoob (supra) cited by Sri T. Venkataramana, there can be no quarrel about the proposition, but on the facts of this case, the ratio laid down in the said judgment has no application whatsoever. In this case, I am concerned with the issue as to whether respondent No.1 discharged its functions as the appellate authority while disposing of the appeal and in carrying out the speciﬁc direction of the Division Bench of this Court in its letter and spirit. Having regard to the ﬁndings rendered above, I am of the view that respondent No.1 has not disposed of the appeal in the manner in which it ought to have disposed of. For the abovementioned reasons, the writ petition is allowed and the impugned order of respondent No.1 is quashed. The matter is remitted back to it to render a speciﬁc ﬁnding as directed by the Division Bench with reference to the record of the RTA, Srikakulam and the STA, Hyderabad after summoning the same. It shall complete this exercise within a period of three months from today. As a sequel to disposal of the writ petition in the manner indicated above, WPMP.No.11975 of 2001 ﬁled by the petitioner for interim relief is disposed of as infructuous. ____________________________ C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Date: 10.09.2008 ES [1] AIR 1964 SC 477