JUDGMENT

ALTAMAS KABIR, CJI.

1. Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 5849 of 2008 filed by one Mohd. Jamal, has been heard along with several other matters where the same issue has been raised and the reliefs prayed for are similar.

2. Leave granted in all the matters. During the hearing of these matters, Mohd. Jamal's case was taken up as the lead matter.

3. From the facts as disclosed in the several Special Leave Petitions (now Appeals), there are three groups of matters included in these Appeals. The first group relates to the State of Karnataka, where the Union of India is the Petitioner/Appellant. The second group involves matters filed by the private parties where the jurisdiction is that of Delhi. The third group deals with the similar question in regard to the States of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

4. All the private Appellants were and are aspirants for dealership in respect of retail outlets of the Indian Oil Corporation and the IBP, which merged with the Indian Oil Corporation on 2nd May, 2007. The genesis of the claim for dealership arises out of policy guidelines, being Policy/MDPM No.319/02 dated 8th October, 2002, for selection of retail outlet dealers, published by the Indian Oil Corporation after the distribution of petroleum product had been deregulated. The said guidelines dealt with the procedure for locations outside Marketing Plans and also stipulated that for the purpose of selection, the dealership would be categorised as indicated in the guidelines and all retail outlets would be developed only on A/C Sites basis which finds place in clause 2 of the guidelines dealing with the common guidelines for all categories.

5. Appearing for the Appellant in SLP(C)No.5842/2008 (now appeal), Mr. Pradip Ghosh, learned Senior Advocate, submitted that after nationalisation of Oil Companies in 1976, the sale and distribution of petroleum and petroleum products were under the control of the Central Government and regulated by the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. On and from 1978 the Central Government allowed the Public Sector Oil Companies to set up retail outlets through an Oil Selection Board, which was subsequently renamed as Dealer Selection Board. Mr. Ghosh submitted that the Central Government devised a methodology of setting up of retail outlets, by constituting the Industrial Meeting Committee which would decide distribution of outlets region-wise in respect of each petroleum company. Till 1998, the production and marketing of petroleum and petroleum products were under the control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and were executed through Public Sector Oil Companies. In 1998, the Central Government decided to partly deregulate the production, supply and distribution of petroleum and its products and indicated 2002 as a cut-off year to completely deregulate the production and supply of petroleum and petroleum products. The Central Government, therefore, again took steps to meet such objectives and in that connection decided to make certain changes with regard to the functioning of natural oil and gas companies under the Market Driven Pricing Regime and to workout the modalities of setting up petrol pumps on National and State Highways.

6. This led to the creation of the concept of Company Owned Company Operated outlets (COCO) as a means to enable National Oil Companies to run and operate their own outlets which were to be run as model retail outlets. Mr. Ghosh submitted that the scheme thus devised was to extend and cater to all National and State Highways and has certain salient features which need to be spelt out in order to appreciate future developments, which form the subject matter of the various appeals being heard by us.

7. One of the more important objectives which the scheme hoped to achieve was to develop the retail outlets on relatively large plots of land measuring 5 acres or so on the Highways. Such land would be under the control of the marketing company eithe