Sanjib Banerjee, J.

The common strand running through these 61 petitions is that the allotment of plots made in favour of the petitioners in New Town, Rajarhat have been, or are threatened to be, cancelled. The petitioners maintain that the actual or threatened cancellation of the allotments is arbitrary, illegal and vindictive. They complain of hostile discrimination against them while several others similarly placed as many of the petitioners have not only been allowed to retain their allotments, but possession of the parcels of land was expeditiously made over to such favoured persons.

2. They are two broad groups of petitioners: the allottees of residential plots of land and the allottees of land for commercial use. Some of the petitioners seek to make a distinction on the basis of whether they were the beneficiaries of the discretionary quota reserved unto the erstwhile chairperson of the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited; or, whether they were beneficiaries of allotments made directly by the board of directors of WBHIDCO.

3. The State and WBHIDCO (the company or HIDCO) do not appear to have any conflict of interest and the State has adopted the stand taken by the company in a supplementary affidavit affirmed on its behalf in WP No. 5158 (W) of 2013 and in the affidavits-in-opposition filed by the company in the individuals matters. The said supplementary affidavit has been affirmed by a principal secretary to the State Government who is designated as the chairman-cum-managing director of the company. The parties to all the petitions were given the liberty to obtain all pleadings in the relevant and the connected matters on the usual terms. Most of these petitions were heard analogously even prior to affidavits being called for and the previous orders on one or the other of most of these petitions intended and indicated that the other matters would also be governed by the same.

4. The final hearing was structured thus: WP 2522(W) of 2014 pertaining to the cancellation of an allotment of land for commercial use was chosen, by consent of the appearing parties, as the lead petition and the common grounds of the challenge to the cancellation of the allotments in the several matters were required to be placed in full detail together with the aspects peculiar to that matter. The State and the company were thereafter heard in their defence of the decision to cancel the allotments in these matters. The private respondent No. 16 in the lead matter - the object of ire of many of the rejected allottees - missed the window allotted to it, but has been heard subsequently. The petitioners in the lead petition were permitted to submit in their rejoinder. Thereafter, the special features in every other individual petition were permitted to be addressed on, both by the petitioners and the respondents.

5. The rejected allottees claim that the cancellation of the allotments in their favour is irrational, unreasonable and arbitrary. They say that since they had applied in the usual course pursuant to applications being invited by the company for allotment of plots of lands in Rajarhat, the mechanism that may have been followed while assessing their applications is of no relevance upon the allotments being approved in their favour and the approval being communicated to them. They suggest that the State cannot act in a whimsical or capricious or vindictive manner upon the change of guard at the company following the alteration of ruling regime in the State. The rejected allottees insist that upon the approval of the allotments in their favour being informed to them, rights vested in them; which could not be wished away by a subsequent executive fiat or on any nebulous or imaginary perception as to the irregularity of the process by which the allotments were approved or made in their favour.

6. The rej