TRANSPORT LICENSES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 244, 12 September 1933, Page 8

TRANSPORT LICENSES.

AN IMPORTANT CASE.

Per Press Association

WELLINGTON, Sept. 12. Whether a transport district licensing authority, when it considers an application for the renewal of a license, can simply grant or refuse the application, or whether it can add terms and conditions without giving notice to the licensee, was an important point raised in a case which came before His Honour Mr Justice Ostler in the Supreme Court to-day. The case also rased the question of the jurisdiction of the Transport Appeal Board. Hodson’s Pioneer Motor Services, Ltd., service car proprietors, Wanganui, were the plaintiffs and members of the No. 5 Transport District Licensing Authority and the Transport Appeal Board were the defendants. It was stated that when the conipany applied for the renewal of its license in February the Licensing Authority proceeded of its own motion to add a now term and conditions, namely, that each run was to be restricted to only one car, without giving the company notice of its. intention as required by the provisions of the Act, and without giving the company an opportunity of being heard on the matter. Subsequently ‘the Railways Board appealed to the Transport Appeal Board, as a result of which the number of services per day to be run by the company on week days each way between Wanganui and New Plymouth was reduced from four* to two. It was claimed that the Transport Appeal Board was not authorised by the provisions of the Act to hear such an application, nor to give such a decision or determination.

The company sought: (a) A writ of injunction restraining the No. 5 Authority from calling in the company’s license and giving effect to the purported determination of the Transport Appeal Board; (b) the issue of a writ of certionari against defendants, quashing or setting aside that part of the No. s'District Licensing Authority’s decision amending the terms and conditions of the company’s license and for the purpose also of quashing or setting aside the Transport Appeal Board’s purported decision varying the terms and conditions of the license, or, alternately, that both decisions be quashed and set aside or otherwise dealt with by the Court; (c) the issue of a writ of prohibition against the Licensing Authority from giving effect to the purported determination of the Transport Appeal Board ; (d) the issue of a writ of mandamus against the Licensing Authority compelling it to issue to the plaintiff company a renewal of the passenger service license in accordance with its decision in May.