( 1 ) THE challenge in this bunch of writ petitions, filed by different Cooperative Group Housing Societies is to the fixation of pre-determined rates of land for the "dwarka" Project and to the validity of Rule 41a of the Delhi Co-operative Societies Rules.

( 2 ) DWARKA Project has been conceiveded and undertaken by the Delhi Development Authority (hereinafter referred to as the DDA) to accommodate a population of about 1. 1 million people. . Dwarka, which is also called Papankalan is situated in the vicinity of Indira Gandhi International Airport. The total area of the scheme is 5648 Hectares, out of which 1862 Hectares is proposed to be developed in Phase-1 and 2098 Hectares in Phase-11. The balance area of 1688 Hectares is already a built up area comprising of regularised/un-authorised colonies being maintained by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD ).

( 3 ) CO-OPERATIVE Group housing Societies including the petitioners, after registration with the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Delhi had applied, and got themselves registered with the DDA for allotment of land.

( 4 ) THE present case relates to three different categories of Cooperative Societies. In the first category are those Cooperative Societies who had been registered, for allotment of land, with the DDA, prior to 1983, the second category is of those who were registered in the year 1983 and were issued letters of allotment of land in the year 1990, while the third category consists of those Cooperative Group Housing Societies who had also registered themselves with the DDA in 1983 but in whose favour allotment letters were issued only in October/november, 1992, demanding payment at the pre-determined rate of Rs-1650. 65 per sq. metre.

( 5 ) IN Civil Writ Petition No-4184/92 and the petitioners in C. writs 767/93, 4396/92, 4440/92 are the Cooperative Group Housing Societies who were registered with the DDA for allotment of land before 1983. On 16th July, 1983 the Registrar Co-operative Societies, who had frozen fresh registration of Co-operative Group Housing Societies, 158 issued public notice re-opening registration of new Cooperative Group Housing Societies. This registration was open for a limited period of time and during this period 1406 new societies were registered.

( 6 ) THE Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Delhi called upon these newly registered Housing Societies to complete all codal formalities so that their names could be forwarded by him to the DDA for allotment of land. The Group Housing Societies were required to submit documents such as list of members etc. which they did. The lists so submitted by the societies were approved by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies at various points of time. Some of the lists which were received earlier were, infact, approved later and vice versa. The Government of India on 20th January, 1990 issued Office Memorandum containing guidelines regarding the procedure for allotment of land. These guidelines, inter alia, provided that the date of seniority for allotment of land for Cooperative Group Housing Societies will be the date on which the papers of the society were found to be in order and approved by the Office of the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Delhi Administration.

( 7 ) ON the basis of the said Memorandum a seniority list of the Societies was prepared by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, the seniority being determined by the date of approval of the final list of members. The Registrar, Cooperative Societies prepared a seniority list of approximately 409 Cooperative Group Housing Societies and a draw of lots took place on 17th January, 1991 for allotting land amongst the first 260 societies in the project "dwarka" for which land had been given by the Central Government to the DDA for development and allotment.

( 8 ) THE aforesaid Memorandum dated 20th Janaury,1990, containing the guidelines for the preparation of the seniority list of the Cooperative Group Housing Societies,