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TMI Blog1963 (10) TMI 26X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ere rejected as timebarred or otherwise defective, and the others which were in order were examined by the Authority. On the 8th May, 1957, the Authority found that Provincial Transport (Private) Ltd., Madras, was the most suitable amongst the applicants and granted one permit to it. As regards the second permit, the Authority held that none of the other applicants was suitable, and so, it refused to grant the said permit to anyone of them:it decided to call for applications afresh under s. 57(2) of the Act. Against this order, appeals were preferred by 18 claimants for permits before the State Transport Appellate Tribunal (hereinafter called the Appellate Tribunal); amongst them was the appellant Syed Yakoob and respondent No. 1 K.S. Radhakrishnan. The Appellate Tribunal confirmed the grant of the first permit to the Provincial Transport (Pvt.) Ltd: and so Car as the second permit was concerned, it allowed the appeal preferred by the appellant and directed that the said second permit should be issued to him; respondent No. 1 s claim for the said permit was accordingly rejected. This order was passed on the 7th July, 1958. The validity of this order was challenged by resp ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... stance, it decides a question without giving an opportunity to be heard to the party affected by the order, or where the procedure adopted in dealing with the dispute is opposed to principles of natural justice. There is, however, no doubt that the jurisdiction to issue a writ of certiorari is a supervisory jurisdiction and the Court exercising it is not entitled to act as an appellate Court. This limitation necessarily means that findings of fact reached by the inferior Court or Tribunal as a result of the appreciation of evidence cannot be reopened or questioned in writ proceedings. An error of law which is apparent on the face of the record can be corrected by a writ, but not an error of tact, however grave it may appear to be. In regard to a finding of fact recorded by the Tribunal, a writ of certiorari can be issued if it is shown that in recording the said finding, the. Tribunal had. erroneously refused to admit admissible and material evidence, or had erroneously admitted inadmissible evidence which has influenced the impugned finding. Similarly, if a finding of fact is based on no evidence, that would be regarded as an error of law which can be corrected by a writ of certio ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... inferior Court or Tribunal, its conclusion may not necessarily or always be open to correction by a writ of certiorari. In our opinion, it is neither possible nor desirable to attempt either to define or to describe adequately all cases of errors which can be appropriately described as errors of law apparent on the face of the record. Whether or not an impugned error is an error of law and an error of law which is apparent on the face of the record, must always depend upon the facts and circumstances of each case and upon the nature and scope of the legal provision which is alleged to have been misconstrued or contravened. In the present case, the question raised by the appellant presents no difficulty whatever. The point which was raised before the High Court by respondent No. 1 lies within a very narrow compass; it is a very short and simple question of fact. It appears that in dealing with the rival claims of the appellant and respondent No. 1 for the second permit on the route in question, the Appellate Tribunal was ultimately influenced by the fact that the appellant had a workshop at Madras which is one terminus of the route in question, whereas respondent No. 1 had a wor ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ice efficiently and without any breakdown whatsoever. The argument is that this letter has not been challenged by any party to the proceedings and has been completely ignored by the Authority and the Appellate Tribunal when they reached the conclusion that respondent No. 1 did not possess a workshop at Chidambaram. As we have already pointed out, neither the Authority nor the Appellate Tribunal has given reasons in support of the findings of fact recorded by it; but the said fact alone does not, in our opinion, justify the conclusion of the High Court that the letter in question had not been considered by the said Authorities, and so, the High Court was not right in issuing a writ of certiorari on that basis alone. But apart from this aspect of the matter, the record shows that the assertion of respondent No. 1 that he had a workshop at Chidambaram was contradicted by one of the claimants for a permit and is entirely inconsistent with the reports submitted to the Authority and the Appellate Tribunal by the department. D. Kanniah Pillai, one of the applicants for the permit, had specifically averred in his application that the other applicants amongst whom respondent No. 1 was in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hidambaram, it would have been mentioned in col. 4, because the said column is obviously intended to indicate all places where the claimant owns a workshop and possesses repair facilities. It appears that before Srinivasan J. the appellant s learned counsel conceded that the allegation made by respondent No. 1 that he owned a workshop at Chidambaram had not been challenged before the Transport Authorities, and naturally Srinivasan J. was considerably impressed by the said concession; but as the Division Bench which heard the Letters Patent Appeal has pointed out, the said concession was not correctly made; in fact, the record distinctly shows that the claim made by respondent No. 1 was challenged by one of the applicants for permit and was plainly inconsistent with the reports to which we have just referred. Therefore, the concession on which Srinivasan J., relied has been properly left out of account by the Division Bench in dealing with the appeal. The Division Bench thought that apart from the said concession, it did appear that the Appellate Tribunal had overlooked the claim made by respondent No. 1 in his letter of the 11 th July, 1956. As we have already indicated, we find ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ame to the conclusion that the said matter was primarily for the decision of the Appellate Tribunal. Mr. Pathak for respondent No. 1 has relied on a recent decision of this Court in K.M. Shanmugam v. The S.R.V.S. (P) Ltd.([1964] 1 S.C.R. 809.) in support of his contention that the error committed by the Appellate Tribunal really amounted to a contravention of s. 47 of the Act. He argues that the Appellate Tribunal was under an obligation, in considering the question about the grant of a permit, to take into account the interests of public generally under s. 47(a) and inasmuch as the Appellate Tribunal has ignored the fact that respondent No. 1 owns a workshop at Chidambaram and thereby has refused his application for a permit, the interests of the,public generally have been sacrificed. This argument prima facie appears to be far-fetched and fanciful; but Mr. Pathak urges that the observations made by this Court in the case of K.M. Shanmugum are in his favour. In our opinion, the said decision does not lend any assistance to Mr. Pathak s contention. In that case, this Court was satisfied that the Tribunal made a clear error of law inasmuch as it held that in the case of the fir ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... desirability of adopting such a course; but we do not see how a plea of such a kind can be entertained where it is clearly shown that the impugned orders passed by the High. Court are without jurisdiction. If Mr. Pathak s argument were to be accepted, in a majority of cases if the High Court interfered with questions of fact in issuing writs of certiorari against the decisions of special Tribunals, it may always be urged that what the High Courts have done is in the interests of justice and this Court should not interfere with the decisions of the High Courts. In the circumstances of the present case, we do not see how considerations of justice can really arise. The Tribunals of fact have found that respondent No. 1 does not own a workshop at Chidambaram and having regard to the other relevant circumstances which the Tribunals have considered, the fact that he does not own a workshop at Chidambaram has ultimately proved decisive against respondent No. 1 and in favour of the appellant. If that be so, a decision based on facts found by the Tribunal cannot be reopened on the plausible plea that a further enquiry should be made because that would be just. If findings of fact were allo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s, their position is like that of courts or other Tribunals against whose decisions writ proceedings are filed; they are not interested in the merits of the dispute in any sense, and so, their representation by lawyers in such proceedings is wholly unnecessary and even inappropriate. That is why we direct that respondents 2 and 3 should bear their own costs. SUBBA RAO J.--I have had the advantage of perusing the judgment of my learned brother, Gajendragadkar J. I cannot agree. The facts lie in a small compass and they are as follows:The State Transport Authority, Madras, called for applications for the grant of two stage carriage permits on the route Madras to Chidambaram. 107 applications were received by the said Authority. The appellant and the first respondent are two of the said applicants. The State Transport Authority gave one of the permits to the Provincial Transport (Private) Limited, Madras: we are not concerned with this permit. As regards the second permit, the said Authority found none of the applicants suitable and, therefore, refused to grant the same to any one of them and directed fresh applications to be called for. Against the said order, the appellant, first ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on to interfere with the finding of fact arrived at by the Appellate Tribunal. Mr. Pathak, learned counsel for the first respondent, argued that though the first respondent clearly stated in his letter dated July 11, 1956, to the Transport Authority that he had such facilities, the State Transport Authority as well as the State Transport Appellate Tribunal had ignored that material circumstance which was germane to the question of public interest under s. 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, and, therefore, the High Court had rightly quashed that order under Art. 226 of the Constitution and directed the Tribunal to dispose of the appeal on merits. Alternatively he contended that though there might be some material for the Appellate Tribunal to come to the conclusion that the first respondent had no such facilities, three learned Judges of the High Court, on the admissions made and the material placed before them, have held that the Tribunal did not decide that question and that they only gave a further opportunity to the Appellate Tribunal to decide the appeal on merits and that in the circumstances it is not a fit case for this Court to interfere under Art. 136 of the Constituti ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... breakdown or whatsoever. None of the innumerable applicants in his application denied specifically the c|aim of the first respondent that he had a separate office and workshop at Chidambaram. This fact was conceded before Srinivasan J., though the learned judge put the concession somewhat higher than was actually made. Nor did the learned counsel for the appellant go back on the limited concession before the Division Bench. But one Kanniah Pillai, who was applicant No. 43-D), stated in his application thus: The applicant Nos. 43, 57, 69, 78 and 81 are residents of Chidambaram but No. 57 is a fleet owner. Nos. 69 and 78 have no workshop. No. 81 is a new entrant. The rest all are far away from the headquarters having no workshop at Chidambaram. Except this vague and implied denial by Kanniah Pillai, there is nothing on the record to suggest that any other applicant denied the claim of the first respondent. The fact remains that the appellant did not at any stage of the proceedings refute the claim of the first respondent. With this background let me first look at the order of the State Transport Authority,. The said Authority has ignored the said letter of the first respo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Cuddalore-on the route . This information given by the Transport Authority is presumably gathered from the earlier report of the. Regional Transport Authority. Reliance is placed upon a letter dated January 10, 1957, written by the first respondent to the Secretary, State Transport Authority, in support of the contention that even the first respondent, though on July 111, 1956, he claimed to have had a workshop at Chidambaram, did not mention it therein. But a perusal of that letter shows that he did mention that he had the sector and terminal qualifications. Basing the argument on the said documents, it was contended that there was material on which the Appellate Tribunal could have come to the finding which it did, viz., that the first respondent had no workshop at either of the terminii of the route. Firstly, these documents were not expressly relied upon by the Tribunal for holding that the first respondent had no workshop at Chidambaram. Secondly, these documents were not relied upon by the appellant either before Srinivasan J., or before the Division Bench to the effect that the Appellate Tribunal gave a finding on the basis of the said material. Thirdly, one of the said docu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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