Judgment

SARKAR, J.-The appellants are two companies. The first appellant owns a sugar factory and the second appellant is the lessee of a similar factory. Both these factories are situate near Siwan in the district of Saran in the State of Bihar.

The appellants moved the High Court at Patna for a writ quashing certain orders, alleged to have been passed by the Government of Bihar and its officer, the Cane Commissioner. Their grievance was that those orders were illegal as they were made in violation of the terms of the Bihar Sugar Factories Control Act, 1937 (Bihar Act 7 of 1937) and the riues made thereunder.

The respondents to the petition were the State of Bihar, the Cane Commissioner, Bihar, a company called Sree Krishna Gyanoday Sugar Ltd. (for short S. K. G. Sugar Ltd.) and certain officers of this Company. It appears that the respondent Company had on September 29, 1962, purchased a sugar mill called the Indian Siwan Factory situate in Siwan not very far from the factories of the appellants. It is said that this mill had not been worked since March 1950. The orders challenged respectively permitted resumption of the working of this mill and reserved a certain area from which i