P.VENKATARAMA REDDI,J. - (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) The first respondent Cyber Infotec (hereinafter referred to as writ petitioner) filed writ petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India in the High Court of Allahabad, seeking issuance of a writ directing the State of U.P. and the Transport Department of the State, not to enforce the condition referred to in cl. 4.2.2(i) of the tender document for the preparation of vehicular smart cards insofar as it requires the insertion of optical strip in the smart card. The provision for issuing the smart card at the time of registration for storing the details set out in the pro forma of the registration certificate (Form 23-A of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 ) was prescribed under the said Rules by way of amendments brought out on 31.05.2002. A definition of "smart card" was introduced in R. 2(s), which reads as follows: "2. (s) 'Smart card' means a device capable of storing data and executing commands, which is a single chip microprocessor, mounted on a plastic card and the dimensions of the card and chip are as specified in ISO 7816 specifications, as may be amended from time to time."
(3.) A few days prior to the promulgation of these amending Rules, the State Government (Transport Department) issued a tender notice on 3.05.2002, inviting sealed tenders for preparation of vehicular smart cards which have to include details of registration of the vehicle, permits, fitness, tax and additional tax, status of pollution checks, insurance, challans, status of surrender and other relevant details relating to the motor vehicles, to be issued at all the regional and sub-regional transport offices spread over the State, which are 71 in number. It is stated in the tender notice that the project for issue of vehicular smart card will be implemented on "build, own and operate" basis and all the necessary investment on the project, including site preparation, project implementation and networking will have to be done by the "vendor". The contract is "liable to be reviewed" after five years. It is also stated that the tender and its implementation will be according to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, which by that time had issued certain guidelines in relation to the smart card. According to the schedule of requirement appended to the tender, the vendor shall improvise the sites at the transport offices at its cost in order to undertake the work of preparing vehicular smart cards for the issue of RC books. The vendor is also required to install networking and necessary hardware equipment on its own investment and deploy the necessary manpower at sites for operating the system. Clause 4.2.2 of the tender notice sets out the essential features of the proposed system. The relevant part of cl. 4.2.2 reads as under: "4.2.2. Proposed system.-(i) The VSC will have two zones: VIZ i.e. visual inspection zone. This relates to the printed information in respect of the vehicle. MRZ i.e. memory readable zone. This will contain 4 KB microprocessor chip and 1.5 MB optical strip. The information printed on the card i.e. VIZ shall be as per the form prescribed by the Department. In the MRZ part certain information has to be kept in the chip part and certain additional information are to be kept in optical strip part. (ii) For additional security, the information shall be on microprocessor chip and optical strip media with scanned signature of the owner, scanned chassis number and engine number of the vehicle and biometrics security measures. (iii) The proposed vehicular smart card will store the current data in its microprocessor chip media containing the complete details of the permits and offences, if any. The complete history of the vehicle would be available on this optical strip, including all the records of the previous owner of the vehicle. Optical strip will also be used for keeping the status of surrender and challans.";