Navin Sinha and Dinesh Kumar Singh, JJ.

1. Heard learned counsel for the petitioners and learned counsel for the State. The claim in the writ application is to be considered for promotion to the post of senior selection grade with effect from 1.4.1981. The petitioners claim to be appointed as Lower Division Clerks on different dates in the Patna Medical College Hospital at Patna. It is their further case that they passed the Accounts examination and were promoted to the post of Upper Division Clerks. They were then granted the junior selection grade on 31.12.1983 with retrospective effect from 1.4.1981. It is further alleged that while one Awadh Kishore Sharma, junior to them has been granted senior selection grade with retrospective from 1.4.1986 by order dated 24.07.1990, the petitioners have been subjected to hostile discrimination. Learned counsel for the State points out that in their representation, the petitioners themselves have claimed senior selection grade with effect from 1986 and not from 1981 as pleaded in the writ application. Learned counsel for the petitioners counter the submission to urge that the petitioners claimed senior selection grade from prior to