The revocation of the national licence held by Birmingham-based Rashed Mahmood, trading as Rashed Travels, on grounds of a lack of professional competence has been quashed by the Upper Tribunal on appeal, who have directed that the matter be reconsidered by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Denton.
The licence held by Mr Mahmood was revoked after his perceived failure to respond to a letter dated 18 April 2018 granting him a period of grace until 31 May to regain his professional competence or to nominate a replacement Transport Manager (TM).
That followed the resignation of the qualified TM he had employed and information that he was seeking to obtain a CPC himself.
The Tribunal said that unfortunately what happened was that Mr Mahmood did not return a TM1 application form with details of a replacement TM and the original certificate of qualification.
He explained in his grounds of appeal that there was no suitable examination date available and so he had looked for another TM. He was unable to find one until 29 May 2018, on which date he posted the paperwork and was told it should arrive the next day. Unhappily, it was not delivered until 5 June.
Mr Mahmood produced to the Tribunal copies of his proof of posting, showing posting at 1731hrs on 29 May, of a stated delivery aim of the next working day and of the record of delivery showing that the paperwork was signed for at 0801hrs on 5 June.
The fact that Mr Mahmood had appointed a new TM by 29 May, within the time limit specified in the letter of 18 April, did not of itself mean that he had rectified the situation.
They could not say that the TC’s decision was wrong if, because of a failure to supply the paperwork promptly, the relevant material was not available to the TC when the decision was made to revoke the licence.
However, it did not appear that Mr Mahmood was ever given notice that he could request a Public Inquiry (PI) at which he might have been able to present evidence that he did satisfy the requirements or even of responding to the notice by drawing attention to the paperwork which had been supplied without requesting a PI.
Although they could understand that it might have seemed to the TC that revocation was inevitable, in the absence of a response to the letter 18 April, the fact remained that Mr Mahmood was entitled to receive a notice offering him the opportunity to request a PI and to have such an inquiry held.
