35. Taking up first the challenge to the impugned conditions in the notices inviting tenders issued by various State authorities, we find sufficient force in submissions advanced on behalf of the Union and the State authorities and the contesting manufacturers. The State as the implementing authority has to ensure that the scheme of high security plates is effectively implemented. Keeping in view the enormous work involved in switching over to new plates within two years for existing vehicles of such large numbers in each State, resort to “trial-and-error” method would prove hazardous. Its concern to get the right and most competent person cannot be questioned. It has to eliminate manufacturers who have developed recently just to enter into the new field. The insistence of the State to search for an experienced manufacturer with sound financial and technical capacity cannot be misunderstood. The relevant terms and conditions quoted above are so formulated to enable the State to adjudge the capability of a particular tenderer who can provide a fail-safe and sustainable delivery capacity. Only such tenderer has to be selected who can take responsibility for marketing, servicing and providing continuously the specified plates for vehicles in large numbers, firstly in the initial two years, and annually in the next 13 years. The manufacturer chosen would, in fact, be a sort of an agent or medium of the RTOs concerned for fulfillment of the statutory obligations on them of providing high security plates to vehicles in accordance with Rule 50. Capacity and capability are the two most relevant criteria for framing suitable conditions of any notices inviting tenders. The impugned clauses by which it is stipulated that the tenderer individually or as a member of a joint venture must have an experience in the field of registration plates in at least three countries, a common minimum net worth of Rs 40 crores and either
