ORDER

1. Heard both sides at length. The appellant(s) herein agree to withdraw the original writ petitions filed by them in the Karnataka High Court, unconditionally. In view of such withdrawal, the impugned judgment of the Division Bench as well as the judgment of the learned Single Judge will net survive. It is made clear that such withdrawal of the original writ petition will not preclude the Trade from moving the Government with a proper representation explaining the fallout of the impugned Notification dated 11-10-1995 and loss of benefit on account of the impugned notification.

2. Today, when investments in the States is the need of the hour, the Government needs to consider such representations of the Trade keeping in mind the Industrial Policy dated 12-7-1993 as well as the Notification dated 28-10-1993 as also the subsequent Industrial Policy vide Government Order dated 15-3-1996 which, inter alia, contains an option to the assessee to opt for the old versus new policy. The representation, if any, will be made by the Trade within a period of six weeks.

3. Before concluding, we may state that we have allowed the appellant(s) to withdraw the original writ petition as the said proceedings came to be filed against the show-cause notice. We have repeatedly held that in the absence of factual foundation, it would be impossible to decide matters of this kind. When the doctrine of promissory estoppel is invoked, the doctrine needs to be based on factual data which has not been pleaded. The High Court should not have interfered in the matter. In these cases, the writ petition was filed without reply to even the show-cause notice. In the circumstances, we could have dismissed these civil appeals only on the ground of failure to exhaust statutory remedy, but for the fact that huge investments involving the large number of industries is in issue.

4. Subject to above, the civil appeals are dismissed as withdrawn with no order as to costs.