( 1 ) THE petitioner is an Advocate of this Court. He has filed this writ petition claiming inter alia following reliefs :-

"keeping in view the above facts and circumstances, it is necessary that this hon ble Court may issue such appropriate writs, Orders and/or Directions as may be necessary and the Petitioner therefor prays that this Hon ble Court be pleased to ;- a. Issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order and/or directions, directing the Public Servants in general and in this case, the Respondent No. 1 in particular to do their duty properly as Public servants, and to issue further orders and/or directions that the Public servants are duty bound, to accept all the communications addressed to them in their official capacityb. To issue an appropriate writ, orders and/or directions that in case the new system and/or, are to be manufactured by any specified companies, then, in that case, it will not be possible for 10 lac vehicle owners in Delhi to be provided with such security system number plates by specified dates i. e. 30. 06. 2000 in such an event the respondents shall extend the said time to a reasonable date and further direct the respondents that companies may be specified immediately and all the further particulars be notified, giving a reasonable time to the owners of vehicles to in regard to the allotment of the registration marks and numbers comply with the same. C. The Registration Authorities (Respondent No. 3 SB 4) be called upon to immediately act in accordance with law and take necessary action as per their public notice as published in the Hindustan Times dated 2. 3. 2001 and as contained in Annexure a to this Petition. This Hon ble Court may pass any other appropriate orders and/or give directions to give more effective relief to the public at large. "

( 2 ) AT the outset, however, Mr. Thadani categorically stated that the prayer as regard having different types of registration number plates in terms of the colour in the cars has become infructuous. The contention of the petitioner is that the matter relating to fixation of high security registration/number plates with security system is beyond the rule-making power of the central Government. According to the petitioner, the provisions of the Motor vehicles Act, 1988 ( in short, the said Act ) do not envisage that there should be a separate registration/number plate having regard to the security aspect of the matter. It was contended that safety of a car as contra-distinguished from safety of the owner thereof is not envisaged in the Act.

( 3 ) DRAWING our attention to the provisions of Section 27 of the said Act, the petitioner would contend that the Central government does not have any power whatsoever to issue the impugned order. It was further submitted that not only the time granted therefor is short even in relation to new vehicles the said registration/number plates are not being fitted. According to the petitioner, the amount required to be spent for the said purpose being about Rs. 40,000/- crores, the same must be held to be against the public policy.

( 4 ) MR. Jayant Bhushan, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent No. 1, on the other hand, would submit that it is not correct to contend that sufficient time had not been given for change of registration/number plates. Learned counsel in this connection has drawn our attention to the following statement made in the counter affidavit :- that in reply to para 2. c and d it is submitted that the rationale for changing over to a new colour scheme, namely, black letters on yellow background for transport vehicles and black letters on white background for other vehicles was to ensure better reflectivity and visibility of number plates, as also to conform to the international practice in this regard. A reasonable transition period of two years for the large number of existing vehicles owners in the country has been provided to change over to the high sec