Cause–Effect Pairing: I) High Court orders a stay on construction of residential buildings on disputed land. II) A large number of middle-class salaried people had already booked flats in these buildings.

Introduction / Context:Here, one statement concerns a judicial action tied to land dispute; the other concerns prior market behavior (flat bookings). We must determine whether one directly causes the other, or whether both arise separately from different underlying causes.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• I) High Court stay on construction due to a land dispute.
• II) Many middle-class buyers had booked flats in those projects.
• Booking typically occurs before legal status is fully resolved in fast-moving markets.

Concept / Approach:The stay (I) is an effect of a legal cause (the dispute). The high volume of bookings (II) is an effect of a different cause (housing demand/marketing/affordability). Neither I nor II seems to create the other directly.

Step-by-Step Solution:1) Underlying cause for I: legal/ownership dispute → court stay.2) Underlying cause for II: demand, pricing, and sales effort → many bookings.3) No logical chain from II → I (bookings do not cause a legal stay) or from I → II (a stay does not cause previous bookings).

Verification / Alternative check:Temporal reasoning supports independence: bookings generally precede stays; stays stem from court consideration of title/rights, not booking volume.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:(a) and (b) force a direct causality that is unsupported; (c) mislabels both as causes rather than effects.

Common Pitfalls:Assuming correlation implies causation; here both statements are downstream of different drivers.

Final Answer:Both statements are effects of independent causes.