Case: Nemi Chand Jain Vs. State Transport Appellate Tribunal, M.P., Gwalior &amp; Others

2. M/s. Sheikh Rasool Transport Co. held a stage carriage permit for one daily return trip onas route. The permit was cancelled and the route was notified. Fifteen persons applied for grant of permit on that route including the appellant and Khuwaja Garib Nawaz Bus Service. Regional Transport Authority Jabalpur, granted the permit to the appellant by its order dated September 8, 1972. Four appeals were filed against that order, including appeal 320 of 1972 of Khuwaja Garib Nawaz Bus Service. The appeals were fixed for hearing on different dates, but were disposed of by a common order of the State Transport Appellate Tribunal dated April 29, 1974. By that order the tribunal set aside the Regional Transport Authoritys order in the appellants favour and granted the permit to Khuwaja Garib Nawaz Bus Service. The appellant felt aggrieved because, according to him, the tribunal dismissed his appeal without giving him a hearing. The precise grievance was that when the case was taken up for hearing on January 11, 1974, the parties were present, but the tribunal adjourned the case for final hearing on March 11, 1974, at Gwalior. No one however appeared on behalf of Khuwaja Garib Nawaz Bus Service in its appeal 329 of 1972, on March 11, 1974, while counsel for appellant Nemi Chand and one other respondent were present. The tribunal did not hear those present and reserved the appeal for orders along with the connected appeals. One Trivedi however appeared before the tribunal on behalf of Khuwaja Garib Nawaz Bus Service on April 10, 1974. The tribunals order sheet of that date recorded that Shri Trivedi stated before the tribunal that he could not attend on the last date due to unavoidable reasons and that his appeal maybe considered on merits as urged in the memorandum of appeal. The tribunal thereafter passed the aforesaid order dated April 29, 1974 by which it set aside the Regional Transport Authoritys order in favour of appellant Nemi Chand and granted the permit to Khuwaja Garib Nawaz Bus Service. The appellant thereupon filed the aforesaid Miscellaneous Writ Petition 394 of 1974. Two other unsuccessful applicants did the same, but we are not concerned with them. As the High Court has dismissed the appellants writ petition by its impugned order dated January 3, 1975, Nemi Chand has filed the present appeal.

Reasoning: We do not think it necessary to examine the correctness of the legal proposition advanced by Mr. Mehta, but even if it were assumed that the appeal could not be dismissed for want of prosecution on March 11, 1974, it was not, for reasons already stated, permissible for the tribunal to allow Shri Trivedi to appear before it on April 10, 1974, and to make his submissions at the back of the respondents. So also, it was not permissible for the tribunal to give a decision adverse to the respondents on the merits, on the basis of the grounds which had been urged in the memorandum of the appeal and to condemn respondent Nemi Chand without informing him of the developments which had taken place on April 10, 1974 and without giving him a hearing. The decision in Vajesingh Salambhai Naiks case which was followed in Asghar Ali Haji Mulla Tayyabali turned on the provisions of Section 17(1) and 20 of the Bombay Merged Territories and Areas (Jagir Abolition) Act, 1953, were quite different, and is not directly in point.