Judgement

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J.:- The Uttar Pradesh Legislature enacted the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Area Development Act, 1976 for the constitution of an authority for the development of certain areas in the State into industrial and urban townships and for matters connected therewith. The New OkhIa Development Area Authority (NOIDA) was constituted under the provisions of this Act. NOIDA acquired vast extents of land in the outskirts of Delhi for the purpose of developing an industrial and urban township. NOIDA announced two schemes called LIG-EWS and MIG Schemes and invited applications for allotment of houses constructed and proposed to be constructed by them. Several thousand applications were received and NOIDA announced closure of the schemes on December 11, 1980. Though in the original advertisement relating to the LIG-EWS scheme, there was no reservation of allotment in favour of any class of persons, it appears that later on NOIDA decided to reserve a certain percentage of houses for some categories of persons in the following manner :-

"(1) Persons whose land has been acquired by NOIDA for the development of NOIDA .... 2%

(2) Entrepreneurs of NOIDA and their employees ... 17%

(3) Employees of NOIDA, U.P. State Government Undertaking, U.P. State Development Authorities and U.P. Government ......15%

(4) Employees of Central Government, Government of India, Public Undertakings, International Organisations .....5%

(5) Political Sufferers ... 5%

(6) Nominees of HUDCO .... 20%"

So far as the MIG houses are concerned, the reservation was mentioned even in the original advertisement inviting applications for allotment of houses.

2. Forty disappointed applicants for allotment of LIG-EWS houses filed writ petition No. 229 of 1981 primarily questioning the reservation in favour of entrepreneurs and seeking a direction that the claims of the petitioners for allotment should be considered in any future scheme. A Rule Nisi was issued by the court on April 4, 1981 and on May 8, 1981, an interim order was also made restraining NOIDA from making any fresh allotment of houses without obtaining the previous order of the court. Another group of six persons who had applied for allotment of MIG houses filed Writ Petition Nos. 2292-97 of 1982 and a similar interim order was made in these petitions also on March 12, 1982. On the same day, that is, March 12, 1982 the application for interim directions in Writ Petition No. 220 of 1981 came up before another bench and an order was made therein permitting NOIDA to assign numbers to houses which had already been allotted but directing NOIDA to reserve 40 houses, so that the petitioners could be accommodated if they succeeded in the writ petition. What is important to be noted here is that by March 1982, only 40 persons had approached this court in the matter of allotment of houses under the LIG-EWS Scheme and six persons in the matter of allotment of houses under the MIG Scheme. Thereafter there appear to have been several hundred petitions of each category. On April 30, 1984 all the petitions were heard together and an order was made by this court consisting of D.A. Desai and R. B. Misra, JJ. in the following terms :-

"Mr. A. M. Srivastava, the Court Master is appointed as Court officer to do the following things :

By our order dated March 12, 1982 this court directed that respondents will not allot 40 houses till the disposal of the writ petition. Mr. 0. P. Rana, learned counsel states that this order was understood by the respondents to mean that 40 houses shall be kept vacant both in EWS Group and LIG Group. These 40 houses are available for allotment in each of the aforementioned groups.

We direct that the petitions in each EWS and LIG group who are desirous of having allotment of one of the houses reserved for the group shall immediately give their names with registration numbers latest by May 31, 1984 to Mr. A. M. Srivastava, the Court Officer appointed by the Court. He shall keep a register in which