BERI, J.

( 1 ) THESE 268 special appeals indicated in the Annexure I to this judgment preferred by the State of Rajasthan against the judgments of the learned single Judge, of different dates though of identical contents, whereby he allowed 268 petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India holding that the Rajas-than colonisation (Rajasthan Canal Project Government Land Allotment and Sale) Rules 1967 (hereinafter called "the Rajasthan Canal Rules) were void being inconsistent with Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The learned single Judge further directed that the State should frame the Rajasthan Canal Rules in the light of the observations contained in his judgment.

( 2 ) LANDLESS tenants who were in occupation of lands in the Rajasthan Canal Project area were holding the lands on temporary basis and they challenged the validity of many of the Rajas-than Canal Rules but at the time of arguments confined their attack to Rules 9, 16 and 19 only. The learned single Judge found that Rule 9 was valid because the classification between pre-1955 and post-1955 holders of land was correlated to a reasonable nexus arising out of the date when the Rajasthan tenanc