Summarize the following court judgment. Civil Appeal No. 424 1971. Appeal from the Judgment and Order dated the 22 2 1971 of Madras High Court in W.P. No. 3125 of 1970. M. Natesan	 and (Mrs). section Gopalakrishanan	 for the Appel lant. K.S. Ramamurthi	 A. T.M. Sampath	 M.M.L. Srivastava and E.C.Agarwala	 for Respondent No. 1. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KRISHNA IYER	 J. This appeal	 without any merit	 deserves to be dismissed without much ado. The few facts of the case are that the appellant and the respondent	 both operators Of stage carriages	 applied for a permit on an 86 Km. route. Marks were awarded to both under the relevant Motor Vehicles Rules to settle their compara tive merit. The appellant secured 8.79 marks and the re spondent 12.08. The latter thus secured an easy arithmeti cal victory over the former and the sense of the scheme would have ordinarily led to the award of the permit to the respondent. However	 the Road Transport Authority preferred the candidate with the lesser marks on the compassionate ground that the rival with the larger marks had already got a permit a couple of months before	 on an overlapping route of 53 Km. On appeal	 the Appellate Tribunal set aside this award and granted 10 1546 SCI/76 408 the permit to the one who had more merit. This has been affirmed throughout	 repelling the challenge by writ peti tion. The aggrieved appellant contends that his permit should not have been set aside	 the ground being that the respondent had got an earlier permit on a part of the route. We are not persuaded about this ground being good. Permits cannot be equated with distribution of patron age. We must remember that public interest is at stake when public transport services are operated. The scheme of the statute	 viz.	 the is that he who can serve the travelling public best	 is to be chosen as the permit holder. Considerations of grace	 charity and compas sion at the expense of public interest are an act of unfairness to the Act. The conclusion	 therefore is that the appellant 's claim was rightly rejected and the respond ent 's award was rightly made. We dismiss the appeal but in the circumstances without costs. P.H.P. Appeal dis missed.

The appellant and the respondent applied for a permit of stage carriages. The respondent secured higher marks than the appellant. The Road Transport Authority preferred the appellant on the compassionate ground that the respondent already had another permit on a route which was partly over lapping over the route in question. On an appeal the Appellate Tribunal set aside the order of the Transport Authority and granted the permit to the respondent. Dismissing the appeal	 HELD: Permits cannot be equated with distribution of patronage. Public interest is at stake when public trans port services are operated. The scheme of the Motor Vehi cles Act and the Rules is that he who can serve the travel ling public best is to be chosen as the permit holder. Considerations of grace	 charity and compassion at the expense of public interest are an act of unfairness to the Act. [408B C]