( 1 ) THE petitioner No. 1 is a registered Society of building contractors, registered under the Societies Registration Act. The members are the contractors who are carrying on the business as private and Government contractors. The petitioner No. 2 is the President of the said Society. The petitioner No. 3, a member of the Society, is also a building contractor.

( 2 ) THE petitioners, who are also Government contractors, are required to purchase boulder, boulder gitty, christ (sic) stone, muram, sand, bricks, etc. for the construction work which they purchase from different sources like petty contractors, suppliers of these articles, who in their turn purchase from other contractors or licensees of the quarries.

( 3 ) ACCORDING to the petitioners when they purchase these articles from the persons mentioned above, they only get a receipt for purchase of the articles and they do not get any royalty receipts as the petitioners do not purchase these minor minerals directly from the licensees of the quarries wherefrom these articles are excavated by the contractors in whose favour the auction is knocked down by the Government as these quarries belong to the State Government, which has fixed the rate of royalty which has to be paid before the goods are taken out by the purchasers from the quarries and that the persons who purchase these articles from the quarries, in turn sell them to different persons. In this way these goods before coming to the market pass through several hands with the result that obviously, the subsequent purchasers do not have and cannot have the royalty paid receipts relating to these articles.

( 4 ) FURTHER according to the petitioners, such royalty paid receipts are ordinarily issued in the name of the truck driver, or truck owner or the person who goes and directly purchases the same from the quarry itself and that if the building contractor directly purchases the same from the quarry then naturally the royalty paid receipts would be issued in the name of the said contractor who would be in a position to produce the royalty receipt as and when required. But, according to the petitioners, in practice the building contractors who supply the material to the Government for its building work do not necessarily or always purchase the same directly from the quarries; but mostly they purchase from different suppliers.

( 5 ) FURTHER according to the petitioners the State Government, vide Annexure R2 dated 22-11-74 addressed a communication to all the Collectors, that before the bills are paid to the building contractors for the supply of minor minerals, the concerned Department should send information to the concerned Collector regarding the minor minerals supplied by the said building contractors for the Government building works. On receipt of the said information the Collectors shall see as to whether any royalty is due from these contractors and if there is any balance due, the Collector shall proceed to recover the same in accordance with the Rules and request the concerned Department or Corporation to make the final payment to the said contractors. According to the said communication the Collectors were called upon to collect the necessary information within a period of fifteen days from the date of the receipt of these bills from the concerned Department and in case the concerned Department does not receive any communication within twentyone days thereof from the concerned collector, the contractor shall be paid his bills. Further according to the petitioners, they have no grievance as such against the said communication Annexure R2 as the learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the Government has taken this laudable step to see that goods are not taken out or removed stealthily from the quarries without payment of royalty, which obviously results in loss of revenue to the State Government.

( 6 ) IN this petition filed under Arts. 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, the griev