Sandhawalia, J.

1. A headlong conflict on precedent pertaining to the interpretation of the circular of the Finance Department dated the 24th August, 1955, for promotion of Lower Division Assistants to the Upper Division and the determination of their seniority inter se has necessitated this reference to the Full Bench. The 6 petitioners claim to have been promoted as Upper Division Clerks consequent upon their passing the departmental examination of accounts in accordance with the circular of the State Government No. G/C-1-1046/61-257 dated (sic) March, 1961 (Annexure 2). It is averred that as a consequence of the promotion of the petitioners as temporary Upper Division Clerks, who were junior to the petitioners and others were reverted on the (sic). Aggrieved by the reversion, the said persons had preferred Civil Writ Jurisdiction Cases Nos. 4125 of 1978 and 4351 of 1978, in which these petitioners were also made respondents. The High Court, in the said writ petitions stayed the reversions, but, it is the claim of the writ petitioners that this in no way affected the order of their promotion as Upper Division Clerks. To the chagrin of the writ petitioners Respondent No. 2 is stated to have transferred the writ petitioners to different places as Lower Division Clerks, allegedly, in violation of the principles of natural justice and Article 311 of the Constitution. The petitioners pray that the impugned orders of their transfer and reversion to the Lower Division Clerk be quashed.

2. On the 25th January, 1979, the Motion Bench directed to maintain status quo as regards the reversion and transfer of the writ petitioners herein, and, when the matter came up for final hearing on the 30th April, 1984, it was directed that the case be placed for hearing before a larger Bench, along with Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 4351 of 1978 and Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 4125 of 1978, in which identical questions had arisen for determination. In the latter set of cases, the referring Division Bench noticed a direct conflict in Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 1092 of 1973 (Umesh Chandra Das V/s. State of Bihar) and Civil Writ Jurn. Case No. 1099 of 1978 (Tripit Narayan Jha V/s. State of Bihar), with regard to the interpretation of the impugned circular of the Finance Department. To resolve the same the matter was referred to a Full Bench.

3. It will appear that Civil Writ Jurn. Case No. 4125 of 1978 came to be dismissed in default for non-prosecution. Learned Counsel for the petitioners in Civil Writ Jurn. Case No. 4351 of 1978 prayed for the withdrawal of the said writ application, apparently, because of the passage of time and the same was accordingly dismissed as withdrawn. The present writ petition, in this set of cases thus alone survives for adjudication.

4. Learned Counsel for the parties were wholly agreed before us that the solitary issue herein is a narrow one with regard to the correctness or otherwise of the divergent views expressed in the judgments of this Court in the case of. Umesh Chandra Das (C.W. J. C. No. 3092 of 1973), and the case of Tripit Narayan Jha (C. W. J. C. No. 1099 of 1978.

5. Now it is common ground that the matter of the promotion of Lower Division Assistants to the Upper Division and the issue of their seniority inter se is not governed by any statutory rule and has to be determined entirely on the basis of the Government circular dated the 24th August, 1955. This is in the following terms:-

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"The undersigned is directed to refer to Memo No. E2-205/51-10551-F, and III-E2-2011/54-8326-F dated the 17th October, 1952, and the 28th July, 1954, respectively, in which it was laid down that substantive promotion to Upper Division posts involving supersession of meritorious Lower Division Assistants, who had not passed the Upper Division examination, should be deferred till the publication of the results of the Upper Division examination held in May, 1954. The results of this examination were publish