The petitioner seeks consideration of renewal application at Ext.P3. In fact, the said application is said to have been filed in 2012. Petitioner had a regular permit , which is evident at Ext.P2. Admittedly, the petitioner abandoned the service, sold the vehicle and went abroad. Later on in the year 2012 he came back and filed an application for renewal, is the contention. The petitioner also claims that he sold the vehicle without surrendering the permit. 2. Evidently, even after the application was filed in 2012, no proceedings were taken to expedite it. The petitioner's contention is that the petitioner merely sold the vehicle and did not surrender the permit. That, however, cannot be countenanced, since, to sell the vehicle, the petitioner would have to obtain a clearance certificate from the Secretary, RTA. Even if, the clearance certificate was issued keeping the permit in suspended animation, then too, the current records of the vehicle, to be substituted in that permit, had to be produced before the Secretary within the period stipulated. Admittedly, the petitioner has not produced the current records of a vehicle before the authority. The petitioner relies on Ext.P3 to contend that there is a temporary permit issued in the vacancy of stage carriage bearing registration No.KL-14-E-3494, even in 2014.
3. The statement filed by the learned Government Pleader clearly discloses that, the petitioner was running vehicle bearing registration No.KL-14-E-3494, on the route Mundyathadka-Kasaragod-Kambar on the strength of regular permit valid upto 19.04.2012. On 23.04.2008, the petitioner has surrendered the permit and had applied for transfer of ownership in respect of stage carriage bearing registration No.KL-14-E-3494 in Form Nos.29 and 30. The surrender is said to have been accepted and the permit transferred to the name of one Aboobacker Siddeque. The purchaser of the vehicle bearing registration No.KL-14-E-3494 is stated to have applied for a fresh permit and obtained another stage carriage permit to operate on the route Sajamkila- Uppala (via) Bayarpadavu-Kaikamba.
4. The petitioner has produced Ext.P6 temporary permit, which is stated to have been issued in the vacancy of vehicle bearing registration No.KL-14-E-3494, which according to the petitioner was the permit in which the petitioner was running the service. According to the learned Government Pleader the temporary permit was not issued on the basis of a defaulted vacancy, but only considering the time slot which was earlier allotted to the petitioner's regular permit. The regular permit in any case was transferred to another and the petitioner has no subsisting claim on it. It is also submitted that a vacancy as such can be claimed only when there is a restriction of the stage carriages operated in a city or town as notified by the State Government under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
5. The learned Government Pleader also submits that the application at Ext.P3 has not at all been received in the office of the RTA, and that it is in any event not in the format as provided in the rules. There is also an inordinate delay in trying to pursue the application, since the writ petition has been filed only in the year 2014.
6. The petitioner contends that he is in need of the permit. No renewal can be made going by the forenoticed facts; but he could make a fresh application, which could definitely be considered only taking into account any notified scheme or restriction having come into effect in the intervening period. The petitioner cannot resurrect a permit, which was long abandoned. The petitioner's claim with respect to issuance of temporary permit does not necessarily lead to a conclusion of existence of the earlier permit. Temporary permits are issued taking into account the need for a service, and time slots which were allotted to a regular permit, but defaulted would also be assigned to such temporary permit.
For all the above reasons, writ petition is found to be devoid of merit and the same is dismissed.
AMV/27/11/ Sd/-
K.VINOD CHANDRAN, JUDGE