S.Ali Ahmed, J.

1. Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 5650 of 1988 was placed for admission before a Division Bench consisting of Mr. Justice P.S, Mishra and Mr. Justice S.B. Sinha on June 12, 1988. The attention of the Bench was drawn to the order passed on C.W.J.C No. 151 of 1988 wherein it was said that the Excise Deputy Commissioner (E.I.B.) would examine the cases of the petitioners who would appear before him either on the 23rd or the 24th May, 1988, and would appoint them on being satisfied that they were physically fit and had not incurred such disqualification which would disentitle them to the appointment and that the petitioners should not be refused appointment on the ground that they have crossed the age limit. It appears that it was urged before the Division Bench that the order was not only a precedent but also was ratio of the order and, as such, other similarly situated employees have right to be given the relief which the petitioners of that case were given. The Bench doubted the correctness of the decision and directed this case to be heard by a larger Bench after admitting the same. Thereafter C.W.J.C No. 5250 and C.W.J.C. No. 5705 of 1988 were also admitted and directed to be heard along with C.W.J.C. No. 5650 of 1988. I may mention here that the order passed in C.W.J.C. No. 151 of 1988 was based on the stand taken by the State and the Court did not decide the matter as such. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners in all the three cases frankly stated before us that it is not at all necessary to consider the correctness of the order passed in C.W.J.C. No. 151 of 1988. Each one of the learned counsels argued the cases without reference to the order passed in C.W.J.C. No. 151 of 1988. I think they were correct in not referring to the order passed in C.W.J.C. No. 151 of 1988 as the order passed in that case was purely on the facts of that case and a decision on fact is an authority only for that case and does not create any precedent.

2. Since the facts of the three cases are not similar, therefore, it will be convenient to deal with them separately.

C.W.J.C. No. 5650 of 1988:

3. There are ten petitioners in this case. They, along with some others, filed applications for appointment as temporary excise constables in response to an advertisement calling for applications. The petitioners were interviewed and a panel was prepared which included the names of these petitioners. The Superintendent of Excise, West Champaran, appointed these petitioners as per Annexure 5 on December 3, 1981 against vacancies available at that time. By Annexure 1 dated March 24, 1983, the services of these petitioners were terminated. The petitioners thereafter filed a representation dated May 31, 1983 (Annexure 9) with a request to regularise their services. It appears that no final order was passed on the representation filed by the petitioners although some correspondence with the authority on the subject was made. Ultimately it is said that on a fresh representation filed by the petitioners before the Minister of State (Excise), Government of Bihar, the Minister directed the Excise Commissioner to take steps for absorbing the petitioners after examining the files concerned and also to place the records before him. A copy of this order has been filed as Annexure 10. The grievance, however, is that in spite of the order passed by the Minister of State, nothing is being done. In these circumstances, this application has been filed praying to quash letter No. 682, dated March 24, 1983 as contained in Annexure 1, and to direct the respondents to absorb them in the cadre of excise constable.

4. A counter-affidavit has been filed on behalf of respondent Nos. 1 to 4. In paragraph 17 of the counter-affidavit it has been accepted that letter No. 5684 dated December 17, 1987 was issued by the Excise Commissioner directing the different district head-quarters for giving preference to the retrenched excise constables in regular ap