The main legal point established in the judgment is that policy decisions, including the engagement of third-party inspection, are generally beyond the scope of judicial review, and public interest litigation must adhere to specific parameters for intervention.

( 1 ) THE question raised in this writ petition, which is in the nature of public interest litigation, is as to whether the engagement of third-party inspection of the contract works of the Delhi Jal Board ( hereinafter for the sake of brevity referred to as, the Board ) as contained in the Letter of intent dated 19. 06. 2002, is valid.

( 2 ) THE petitioner is a partnership firm. It undertakes various contract works under the Board. According to the petitioner, the first respondent herein has on its rolls a large number of Engineers in addition to the third respondent herein to look after its works. Besides the same, the Board from time to time receives free services of the Chief technical Examiner, Ministry of Home, Govt. of India for cross-checking the quality of each work and action proposed by him is binding on the technical staff as also the contractors and in that view of the matter the impugned policy decision was unwarranted. Besides the same, services of the third parties at an average cost of 2. 75% of the contract, value for inspection of their various contracts in addition to the engineering staff being provided, which shall cost the Exchequer an additional avoidable sum of rs. 30 crores in the current contracts alone as a result whereof the contractors and the Board s engineering staff shall be unofficially poorer.

( 3 ) THE petitioner contends that the third respondent herein has been nominated by the Administrator as a Member and though he is supposed to have specialized knowledge and experience in the matters relating to their respective fields, but although he did not fulfill the criteria of having the specialized knowledge and/or experience relating to drainage, but still nominated as Member Secretary by the administrator.

( 4 ) THE contention of the respondents, on the other hand, is that the petitioner does not have any locus standi to maintain this writ petition by way of this public interest litigation nor this Court can go into the said question having regard to the fact that the same relates to a policy decision.

( 5 ) MR. Sandeep Sharma, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, would contend that this writ petition has been filed bona fide. The petitioner as a contractor of the first respondent has sufficient interest in the matter and, thus, has the locus standi to maintain this writ petition. According to the learned counsel, a Member (Drainage) can be nominated by the Government, who shall be an engineer, drawing pay in the scale less not than that of a Joint secretary to the Government of India, having specialized knowledge and experience in matters relating to drainage; and in that view of the matter, the said respondent was required to have the specialized knowledge in relation thereto. It was, therefore, contended that if he is not in a position to supervise the works in which he was appointed, it must be held that he was not a fit person to be nominated by the Government. In any event, the learned counsel would contend that even if the petitioner has no locus standi having regard to the enormity of the problem, this Court should suo moto exercise its jurisdiction and interfere in the matter. Strong reliance in this connection has been placed on Waris Rashid kidwai v. Union of India and Ors, 1998 III AD (DELHI) 113. Drawing our attention to the terms of the contract, the learned counsel would contend that having regard to the fact that various clauses as regard inspection have been put in, the impugned policy decision must be held to be illegal. In this connection, our attention has been drawn to clause 47 of the terms of contract, which is in the following terms :-

"47. The works valued Rs. 100 lac and above shall be subjected to Chief Technical examiner Government of India (C. T. E.) inspection, if required. The Contractor shall have to remove all defects/deficiencies pointed out in the work by CTE. Recoveries if any proposed by C. T. E. shall be recovered from th