Hansaria, J.:- The Mariani country spirit shop No. 9 was settled by the primary authority with respondent No. 1 (here­inafter called the respondent). The petitioner felt aggrieved at this and he preferred an appeal before the learned Assam Board of Revenue (for short, the Board) and urged that as the respondent was a defaulter of Government loan, he was not qualified to be granted the licence and that he was also a benamdar. Both these submissions have been rejected by the learned Board and hence this writ petition. 2. The loan whose default was alleged had been advanced by the Assam State Housing Board to the father of the res­pondent. Our attention has been invited by the learned Advo­cate general, Meghalaya, who has appeared for the petitioner, to Annexure-5 of the petition whereby the respondent amongst others undertook to repay the entire amount of the loan. From Annexure-6 it is also clear that a sum of Rs. 1824.80 was lying as arrear for the year 1978-79. These documents show that the respondent can be regarded as a defaulter of the loan from the Housing Board, The pertinent question is whether that loan can be characterised as Government loan, in which case alone the respondent would become disqualified because of the provisions in Rule 219 (c) of the Assam Excise Rules. The learned Advocate General took us through the various provisions of the Assam State Housing Board Act, 1972, to impress upon us that this Board has to be regarded as an instrumentality of the State inasmuch as its composition, working, etc., is fully under the control of the Government. To accept the submission of the learned Advocate Ceneral, the Housing Board has been discharging those functions which the Government itself used to undertake earlier. To bring home this point, we have been referred to Sukhdev Singh, AIR 1975 SC 1331 , and to the cases of International Airport Authority, AIR 1979 SC 1628 ; Mathuradas vs. S. D. Munshaw, AIR 1981 SC 53 ; and Som Prakash Rekhi vs. Union of India, AIR 1981 SC 212 . 3. There can be no doubt that the International Airport Authority's case has opened a new horizon or has widened the same, to bring within the ambit of the expression "the State" as used in Article 12 of the Constitution those bodies which are exercising governmental functions, though have in­dependent existence. 3. There can be no doubt that the International Airport Authority's case has opened a new horizon or has widened the same, to bring within the ambit of the expression "the State" as used in Article 12 of the Constitution those bodies which are exercising governmental functions, though have in­dependent existence. But we are not inclined in the case at hand to undertake the exercise of finding out as to whether the Reusing Board can be regarded as a part of the State within the meaning of this expression as used in Article 12. This question would have merited our scrutiny if we were called upon to decide as to whether a writ could lie against the Board or whether any of its actions could be tested on the anvil of fundamental rights conferred by Part III of the Constitution. That is not so in the present case. What is in­volved is whether the loan by the Housing Board could be held to be a loan by the government, which would be so only if that Board could be regarded as a part and parcel of the Government. None of the decisions referred by the learned Advocate General has held that bodies-whether statutory or incorporated under the Companies Act, or registered under the Societies Registration Act-could be labelled as Government. Organisations like the Life Insurance Corporation of India, Industrial Finance Corporation, Oil and Natural Gas Commission, State Warehousing Corporation or Bharat Petroleum Corpora­tion were held to be covered by the expression "other authori­ties" used in Article 12, and as such, included within the expression "State" as understood in that Article. A parusal of this Article itself shows that Government has been treated as an entity different from "other authorities"; and a definite distinction was made between these two entities. The consti­tutional and legal conception of Government is entirely different. A cussory glance at the Constitution would show that this basically includes the President and the Council of Ministers at the Centre and the Governor and the Council of Ministers at the State. The consti­tutional and legal conception of Government is entirely different. A cussory glance at the Constitution would show that this basically includes the President and the Council of Ministers at the Centre and the Governor and the Council of Ministers at the State. The Rules for the Conduct of Business which are framed in exercise of the powers under Article 77 or 166 of the Constitution take within their folds officers like Secretaries, and by a long line of decisions from G. Nageswara Rao, AIR 1959 SC 308 , to Samsher Singh, AIR 1974 SC 2192 , actions taken by Secretaries etc. have been regarded by the "Supreme Court as actions of the Government. Widening of this concept to include not only the Directorates but other statutory or non-statutory bodies is not warranted. 4. The learned Advocate General strongly pressed into service the decision of the Supreme Court in Mathura Das (supra), wherein it was held that Panchayat Service was a part of Civil Service of the State. The Supreme Court held as above because it was satisfied that relationship of master and servant existed between the State and the incumbents of the Panchayat Service. This, decision cannot be interpreted to mean that Panchayats are also part of Government. The observation in para 22 of the judgment which was read out to us in this context does not cover such a proposition. A person or a body may be engaged in carrying our governmental function, but for that matter it cannot be regarded as a part of the Govern­ment, which is a distinct and separate entity and is concept­ually different as noted above. The figurative expression that an authority is an arm of the Government is not to equate it with the Government. 5. We are, therefore, not satisfied if the loan given by the Housing Board could be regarded as a Government loan. The respondent was thus not disqualified from being granted licence for the shop in question. 6. The allegation relating to 'benami' is founded on the fact that respondent was not maintaining a bank account, tho­ugh his daily sale used to be in the neighbourhood of Rs. 4000/-. We do not think if this solitary fact is sufficient to come to the conclusion even by preponderance of probabili­ties that the respondent was a benamdar of somebody else. The allegation relating to 'benami' is founded on the fact that respondent was not maintaining a bank account, tho­ugh his daily sale used to be in the neighbourhood of Rs. 4000/-. We do not think if this solitary fact is sufficient to come to the conclusion even by preponderance of probabili­ties that the respondent was a benamdar of somebody else. The respondent might not have maintained bank account because he might have felt the need of using the daily proceeds to make frequent purchases from the warehouse. Apparently there is no legal requirement that the sale proceeds must be deposited in a bank. Money might have been kept at hand for any other reason, namely, non avilability of a bank at hand or difficulty in withdrawing the money from bank too often etc. In any case this being a finding relating to a fact, we do not think if the conclusion arrived at is such which merit interference in exercise of the extraordinary powers of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. 7. These being the submissions made before us, we are not satisfied if any interference is called for at our hand. The-petition therefore stands dismissed. Parties will bear their own costs.