Hon’ble Arun Tandon, J.—Heard Sri M.D. Singh ‘Shekhar’, Senior Advocate, Sri D.P. Singh, Senior Advocate alongwith Sri Deobrat Mukherjee, Sri Deo Prakash Singh, Sri Mukesh Prasad, Sri S.K. Dwivedi, Sri Rajesh Khare, Sri Rajesh Letiari, Sri Madan Lal Srivastava, Sri Atul Shahi, Sri Akhilesh Kalra, Sri S.K. Pathak, Sri Prasant Shukla, Sri Atul Shahi, Sri Anoop Trivedi and Sri Ved Prakash Singh, Advocates on behalf of the petitioners, Sri Vijay Bahadur Singh, learned Advocate General for the State of U.P. Assisted by Sri A.K. Singh and Sri Vishnu Pratap Singh, Advocate on behalf of State respondents in this bunch of writ petitions.

2. These writ petitions have been filed with the prayer to quash the Notifications published by the District Magistrate of various districts of State of U.P. issued under Section 72 of the U.P. Minor Mineral (Concession) Rules, 1963 as amended up to date (hereinafter referred to as ‘Concession Rules, 1963’) with reference to the Government Notification dated 22nd October, 2014 declaring certain areas as available for grant of minor mineral found in the river bed for the purposes of grant of mining leases. The petitioners challenge Rule 34 sub-rules