I.A. Ansari, J.

1. Can, in India, a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a holding company be treated as the subsidiary of the holding company even if the holding company is not registered in India and functions, in India, through its subsidiary, which is not registered, in India, as a company under the Companies Act, 1956, but which, in turn, functions through its subsidiary, which is registered, in India, as a company under the Companies Act, 1956? When a subsidiary is a wholly owned subsidiary of the holding company, can the law ever treat the activities, acts or omissions of such a subsidiary as the activities, acts or omissions of its holding company? These are the two questions of paramount importance, which this writ petition has raised.

2. This writ petition is unusual. Unusual, because, in the present case, the writ petitioners, instead of attacking the respondents, are themselves under attack, for, the writ petitioners are accused by the respondents to have suppressed the truth, made incorrect, false and misleading statements, in their writ petition, in order to persuade the High Court to restrain, in exercise of its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the State respondents from receiving, pursuant to a tender process, a model of pacemaker, which was, in public interest, selected consciously by the State respondents for the common good of cardiac patients of the three medical colleges, in Assam, following a decision-making process, which was, otherwise, completely fair, entirely transparent and wholly legal.

3. Before I describe as to what the respective cases of the parties to this writ petition are, some material facts/which are not in dispute, maybe noted. With the object of providing to some, if not all, cardiac patients 'Permanent Pacing System', commonly known as 'pacemaker', within the financial year 2007-2008, for three medical colleges of Assam, the Director of Health Services, Government of Assam, published, on 03.05.2007, a Notice Inviting Tender (in short, 'NIT'), whereby sealed tenders, under two bids system, namely, 'technical bid' and 'price bid', for supply of about 400 Permanent Pacing System' from the manufacturers thereof. While the last date and time of receipt of the tender was 28.05.2007 at 2.00 pm, the date and time of opening offender was 28.05.2007 at 3.00 pm. The NIT stipulated opening of the bids in presence of the bidders' representatives, who ought to have had the authorisation to negotiate price, terms, conditions, etc. Six tenders were altogether received including the ones, which were submitted by the petitioner No. 1 and the respondent No. 4. In course of time, respondent No. 4 stood selected for award of the contract. It is the selection of respondent No. 4, which stands challenged in this writ petition.

4. This writ petition, as succinctly indicated above, receives resistance, at its very threshold, from the respondents on the ground that the writ petition suffers from suppression of material facts and is largely based on incorrect, false and misleading statements and that it is on the strength of such incorrect, false and misleading statements that the writ petitioners have procured interim direction(s) from this Court. It is also alleged that after the writ petitioners were found to have obtained interim order(s) by misleading this Court, the petitioners have tried to save themselves by projecting a case, which is substantially different from what the case, originally, presented before this Court was.

5. In order to correctly appreciate as to why the petitioner company is claimed to have changed and improved its case from what it had, originally, presented to this Court, it is necessary to take note of the petitioner company's case as, originally, presented and the manner in which the petitioner company is shown to have developed its case, The case with which the writ petitioners came to this Court may, in a nut shell, be set out as under:

In terms of the NIT, the te