JUDGMENT

Santosh Hegde, J.-Being aggrieved by the judgment of the High Court of Delhi dated 25th January, 1999 made in C.W.P. No. 3020/97, the writ petitioners therein have preferred this appeal by leave of this Court.

2. Respondent No. 1, Government of India (GOI), took a policy decision in the year 1992 to offer some of its discovered oil fields for development on a joint venture basis. Its decision in this regard was that medium sized oil fields will be offered for development under the joint venture with the participation of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC)/the Oil India Limited (OIL) while the small sized oil-fields will be offered for development without the participation of the ONGC/OIL. This policy decision was taken on the ground that the country was facing foreign exchange crisis and there was lack of resources to fully develop these oil-fields. The GOI was also of the opinion that the domestic crude production was declining and there was a need to augment its production. With the said policy in mind, the GOI invited bids for 12 medium sized oil fields and 31 small sized oil fields. In response to the invitation of the GOI in regard to the two medium sized oil-fiel