IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH SHIMLA C.W.P. No.1950 of 2007 alongwith CWP Nos.1952 of 2007, 1954 of 2007 & 1961 of 2007. Date of decision: 10.1.2008 1.Smt.Archana Goel, in CWP No.1950 of 2007. 2.Smt.Manishi Rani in CWP No.1952 of 2007. 3.Sh.Raghu Nandan Goel in CWP No.1954 of 2007. 4.Sh.Subhash Chander Gupta in CWP No.1961 of 2007. ……Petitioners -Versus- State of H.P. and others ….Respondents Coram: The Hon’ble Mr.Justice Deepak Gupta,Judge. The Hon’ble Mr.Justice V.K.Ahuja, Judge. Whether approved for reporting? No For the Petitioners: Mr.Ajay Sharma, Advocate. For Respondents: Mr.R.K.Bawa, Advocate General with Mr.R.M.Bisht, Dy.A.G. for respondents- State. Deepak Gupta, J.(oral) These writ petitions are directed against the order of the learned State Transport Appellate Authority dated 8th October, 2007 whereby the appeal filed by the present petitions has been rejected. All the petitioners are transporters. They applied for stage carriage service permits to run buses on inter-State routes between Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. They applied to the State Transport Authorities in Uttar Pradesh for grant of permission. Permission was duly granted to them by the authorities in Uttar Pradesh. Thereafter, the petitioners approached the State Transport 2 Authority, Himachal Pradesh respondent No.2 for counter signatures in terms of Section 88 of the Motor Vehicles Act. The grievance of the petitioners is that no decision on their application was taken. On 5th April, 2007 a communication was received by them signed by the Joint Commissioner Transport stating therein that the stage Carriage permits cannot be granted to the petitioners since they do not fall within the agreement entered into between the State of Uttar Pradesh and the State of Himachal Pradesh. We do not understand what concern the Joint Commissioner Transport had with the case. He had no role to play and it was only the State Transport Authority which was to decide the matter. Section 88(i) of the Motor Vehicles Act provides that stage carriage permits issued by the Regional Transport Authority shall only be valid in the region under the said RTA unless the permit granted in one State is counter-signed by another State Transport Authority. It is, therefore, clear that it is the State Transport Authority which is required to counter-sign the permits and there is no role of the Joint Commissioner Transport in this regard. The petitioners allege that they applied to the State Transport Authority for certified copy of the order but no such copy was ever supplied. Therefore, they filed an appeal against the order dated 4th April, 2007. Learned State Transport Appellate Tribunal has rejected the appeal primarily on the ground that no certified copy of the order which is under challenge has been annexed. The State 3 Transport Authority after holding so should not have gone into the merits of the case. He, however, went into the merits of the case and made certain observations which were totally uncalled for. Once the Appellate Authority had held that the appeal filed before it was not properly constituted it should not have gone into the merits of the case. We are also surprised to note that after making some observations on merits when the counsel for the petitioners cited an authority of the Allahabad High Court the Appellate Authority made the following observations: “The Ld.Counsel for the appellant has cited the judgment in case Nanak Chand Sharma v.State of U.P. 1994 Crl.L.J.664, but said authority is not applicable in this case because the copy of any order passed by the State Transport Authority has not been filed with the appeal in this case.” If the Appellate Authority was of the view that it was not to go into the merits of the case it should not have said anything on merits. But once it had decided to go into the merits of the case it could not have brushed aside the authority cited before it by saying that there is no properly constituted appeal. We have read the authority and find that it would have been relevant to decide the case on merits. We had asked the learned Advocate General to produce the record of the case and it is candidly conceded by him that in fact no decision on the application of the petitioner was taken by the State Transport Authority which is a Multi Member Body. Only two communications dated 4th April, 2007 issued by the Joint Commissioner Transport and the second by the Secretary (STA) 4 dated 2-11-2007 have been placed on record. Even the Secretary of the STA is not entitled to issue any communication till a decision has been taken by the Multi-Member Body i.e. the STA. Therefore, the communication dated 2.11.2007 is virtually meaningless. In view of the fact that no action has been taken on the application of the petitioners by the State Transport Authority till date, we dispose of this writ petition with a direction to the respondent No.2 State Transport Authority, Himachal Pradesh to pass a speaking order on the applications of the petitioners on or before 15th February, 2008. The State Transport Authority shall give hearing to the petitioners as well as the representatives of the Transport Department of the State. The State Transport Authority shall supply a certified copy of the reasoned order passed by it to the petitioners on their filing proper applications in this behalf by 20th February, 2008. In view of the observations made above the State Transport Authority shall decide the matter in accordance with law totally uninfluenced by the communications dated 4.4.2007, 2.11.2007 and the decision of the Tribunal dated 8.10.2007. Any party aggrieved by the said order can file an appeal to the appellate authority. If such appeal is filed the appellate authority shall decide the same within two months from the date of filing of the same. We may hasten to add here that we have not said anything on the merits of the case and any observations made by us will not come 5 in the way of the State Transport Authority while deciding the case on merits. In view of the disposal of the main matters, all miscellaneous applications are also disposed of. ( Deepak Gupta ), Judge January 10, 2008. ( V.K. Ahuja ), PV Judge