The facts of the case are simple and can be stated thus. On 6 September 2007 the petitioner applied for UAS licences in twenty one (21) service areas, that is, in all the service areas in the country, excepting Mumbai. Shortly thereafter, the DoT issued a press note on 24 September 2007, announcing the decision that until further orders, new applications for UAS licences would not be accepted after 1 October 2007. Till the date of the press note, 167 applications were received by the government. These included some applications that were submitted in March 2006 but lay unprocessed since then. After publication of the press note, 408 more applications came to be submitted. Thus, by 1 October, government had received 575 applications for UAS licences for the 22 service areas in the country. On 10 January 2008 the DoT issued another press note by which the dead-line for applications for fresh licences was retrospectively advanced to 25 September 2007. The press note further declared that the government was following the policy of first-come-first served under which initially an application that was received first would be processed first and thereafter, the applicant, if found eligible, would be granted Letters of Intent (LoI) and then whosoever complied with the conditions of
