We investigate a new class of LRS Bianchi type-II cosmological models by revisiting in the paper of Mishra et al (2013) by considering a new deceleration parameter (DP) depending on the time in string cosmology for the modified gravity theory suggested by Sáez & Ballester (1986). We have considered the energy-momentum tensor proposed by Leteliar (1983) for bulk viscous and perfect fluid under some assumptions. To make our models consistent with recent astronomical observations, we have used scale factor (Sharma et al 2018; Garg et al 2019) a(t) = exp [ 1 β √ 2βt + k], where β and k are positive constants and it provides a time-varying DP. By using the recent constraints (H 0 = 73.8, and q 0 = −0.54) from SN Ia data in combination with BAO and CMB observations (Giostri et al, arXiv:1203.3213v2[astro-ph.CO]), we affirm β = 0.0062 and k = 0.000016. For these constraints, we have substantiated a new class of cosmological transit models for which the expansion takes place from early decelerated phase to the current accelerated phase. Also, we have studied some physical, kinematic and geometric behavior of the models, and have found them consistent with observations and well established theoretical results . We have also compared our present results with those of Mishra et al (2013) and observed that the results in this paper are much better, stable under perturbation and in good agreement with cosmological reflections.