Law: Motor Vehicles Act, 1939

Section: S. 4-7(1)(c)

  Motor Vehicles Act (IV of 1939), S. 4-7(1)(c)-Existing services have no claim to further permits.   Route permit-New concern having good financial position and starting on right line-To be encouraged in interest of healthy competition.   ORDER   This order will dispose of the eight connected transport Appeals No. 98, 100, 104,106, 109, 110, 112, 116 of 1959-60. They all relate to the same route and were dealt with by the P. T. A. in the same meeting by what may be termed a single composite order. The facts briefly are as follows :-   The Provincial Transport Authority advertised for the grant of 5 stage carriage permits for Lyallpur-Chistian Road via Chichawatni, Burewala and Hasilpur. There were several applicants including the eight appellants and the respondent Tariq Goods and Passenger Transport Company. The Provincial Transport Authority considered the case in their meeting held on 15th-17th March 1960 and after considering carefully the merits of the various applicants decided to grant the five permits to the respon dent Company. The main reasons which influenced the Authority were that this Company had a sound financial position ; had imported 24 new bus chassis, bodies on 12 of which were under construction. In addition it bad placed further orders for another 12 new chassis. The general grounds for rejecting the applica tions of the appellants were that their fleets consisted of a number of old vehicles, and they could hardly run satisfactorily even their existing services. Further, in certain cases their were Internal disputes which had adversely affected their efficiency. They have also now come up in appeal.   Several pleas have been raised and most of them are common to all. For instance in most cases the appellants are holding permits to ply on a part of the route in question and this fact, it is argued gave them a priority for consideration by the Provincial Transport Authority. Under the Motor Vehicles Act no applicant has a right to a route permit but a plea is raised that the pro visions of section 47 (1) (c) of the Act imply that existing transport services have some sort of a claim. The interpretation of this…