SATYESHWAR ROY and S.B.SINHA JJ.

1. These writ applications involving common questions of law and fact were heard together and. are being disposed of by this judgment.

2. Whether Clause 5 of the agreement as contained in Annexure-1 to the writ application, whereby and whereunder, minimum guaranteed quota required to be lifted by the licensee has been fixed, and the amendment made in Rule 138 of the Bihar Excise Rules, as published in the Gazette on 28-3-1990 whereby and whereunder it was directed that the retail vends may be kept open from 8 A.M. to 7 P.M. only, instead of Sunrise to 10 P.M. are valid or not, are the questions involved in these writ applications.

3. In C.W.J.C. No. 1303 of 1990 (R), petitioner No. 1 is an association of Ranchi Wine dealers and petitioners Nos. 2 to 6 are licensees under the Bihar and Orissa Excise Act, 1915 (the Excise Act). They have challenged that part of the condition of licence by which they are to lift and sell every month minimum guaranteed quota of foreign liquor and also notices by which the respondents have threatened that if the petitioners failed to comply the aforesaid obligations, their licences would be terminated/cancelled.