25. The basis for participation in such tender processes, thus, is, always was and continues to be, from the beginning to end that the NGO or voluntary organization should work for non-profit and charitable purposes. Furthermore, the experience gained by such NGOs is based entirely – atleast as far as Delhi based NGOs are concerned – upon the previous eligibility criteria formulated by the Government of NCT and also wholly dependent upon the fixed rates that they can be paid. Thus, functioning NGOs such as the petitioners are under a tight leash and have little room to “diversify” into other lucrative activities. Also, the turnover from mid day cooked meals alone is relevant under the impugned RFP. Superimposed upon these considerations is the overriding public purpose that the cooked mid day meals provided are free, possess minimum nutritional content and are viewed now as essential to those receiving it i.e. publicly funded school goers, strongly underlines that it is not a commercial consideration but rather welfare that dictates every part of the scheme. Having regard to this essential purpose, the blind and uncritical adoption of the Municipal Corporation based model of eligibility criteria (based upon the 18 NGOs catering to varying student populations of those schools within their jurisdiction) is in the opinion of the Court entirely arbitrary and unreasonable. The Municipal Corporations are geographically dispersed on account of their jurisdictions (3 in number). The basis for their clustering is entirely different. One of the largest Municipal Corporations i.e. the East Delhi Municipal Corporation has the least number of NGOs (3); however, South Delhi Municipal Corporation has 11 catering to its schools. Taking the figures of NGOs who supply cooked meals to such MCD schools, in the opinion of the Court, amounts to fitting a square peg in a round whole. The re-clustering ordered by the Government of NCT of Delhi (20 clusters throughout Delhi) is more than the number of service providers in all MCDs. Furthermore, the student population base for the NCT of Delhi is far larger than that of the MCDs.
