This decision was available to the Division Bench of the High Court when the appeal filed by the respondents came for hearing.
The respondent then filed a letters patent appeal.
3547 Home dated December 1, 1958, and since, in its opinion, the respondents Shri Ram Popular service P Ltd. had obtained the highest number of marks namely, 3 the respondents were entitled to the grant.
1298 dated April 28, 1956, which was the previous direction issued by the State Government under Section 43A of the Motor Vehicles Act, was set aside.
It was a medium route as mentioned in Government Order No.
The facts giving rise to the present appeal are as follows The secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Tirunelvelli, invited applications for the grant of a stage carriage permit on the route Tuticorin to Tiruchendur via Mikkani.
The writ Petition was, therefore, dismissed.
It was held that it was legitimate to assume that the legislature intended to respect the basic and elementary postulate of the rule of law that in exercising their authority and discharging their quasi judicial functions, the tribunals companystituted under the Act must be left absolutely free to deal with the matter according to their best judgment guided only by the statutory light.
By a process of elimination the only important companytesters before the Tribunal were the appellant and the respondents.
For this, the Tribunal relied on a clause of the G.O. referred to above which said that small and medium operators must be preferred to the bigger operators on the smaller and medium routes, The Tribunal, therefore, reversed the order of the Regional Transport Authority and made the grant in favour of the appellant.
But in the view of the Tribunal the respondents were a fleet owner with 32 permits while the appellant was a small operator with only two or three permits, and since in all respects the appellant was quite, eligible, he was entitled to be preferred on the ground that, in the interest of the public, small operators require encouragement as against the bigger operatOrs.
The Regional Transport Authority companysidered the claims in the light of the directions issued by the State Government under Section 43A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 in G.O.M.S. No.
Several persons applied for the giant.
The respondents, thereupon, filed the writ Petition in the High Court for setting aside the order of the Tribunal.
The distance was about 24 miles.
The learned single Judge of the companyrt, who heard the writ Petition, was of the view that there was numbererror in the order passed by the Tribunal because preference based on classification of operators as fleet owners and medium operators was germane to Section 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act which prescribed the matters which had to be companysidered by the authority for the purposes of a grant of a stage carriage permit.
2265 Home dated February 9, 1958.
2265 Home dated August 9, 1958 as amended by G.O. No.
had been rendered and by that decision G.O. No.
The Tribunal found that so far as the marks were companycerned, respondents had scored more marks and would therefore, be entitled to serious companysideration.
Six others including the present appellant, who were aggrieved by that order, went in appeal to the Transport Appellate Tribunal, Madras.
4 of 1963 of the High Court of Madras.
G. Palekar, J. This is an appeal by certificate from the Judgment and Order dated 5 8 1964 in Writ Petition No.
