( 1 ) IN this third round of litigation with the sales Tax authorities, by this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner seeks to challenge the order, dated 20 March 2001, passed by the Deputy Collector (Recovery )/collector, Sales Tax, new Delhi, holding the petitioner company to be the transferee company, liable to pay the outstanding sales tax dues of the transferor company, namely M/s. Byford leasing Limited, hereinafter referred as the Byford, in terms of Section 32 of the Delhi Sales Tax Act, 1975 (for short the. Act) and having defaulted in discharging the said liability, liable to be proceeded against under Section 139 of the Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954 (for short the Land Reforms Act ).

( 2 ) IN order to appreciate the controversy involved, we shall briefly notice the material facts, which are as follows:

THE first petitioner is a company incorporated on 9 March 1998 with the main object of carrying on the business of collection, processing and disposal of solid municipal waste etc. The second petitioner is one of the directors of the company. On 28 September 2000 the petitioner received a copy of the notice under Section 139 of the Land Reforms Act, addressed to the Administrator, Greater NOIDA authority, whereby the amounts due to the petitioner from the authority were attached for the dues of byford. The said warrant of attachment was challenged by the petitioner in Civil Writ petition No. 6434/2000 before this Court. However, during the course of hearing, it was stated by counsel for the Sales Tax authorities that the said warrant of attachment would not operate against the petitioner. Upon this statement, the writ petition was disposed of vide order dated 24 January 2001.

( 3 ) ON 25 January 2001, the petitioner was served with a fresh notice, dated 24 January 2001, addressed to the District Collector, NOIDA, Chairman of greater NOIDA, requiring them to remit all amounts due to the petitioner from them in terms of attachment order dated 10 October 2000. In the notice it was alleged that the petitioner being a sister concern of byford, having common directors belonging to the same company and executing certain works of Greater NOIDA, was liable to pay the dues outstanding against Byford. This notice was also impugned by the petitioner in civil Writ petition No. 640/2001 before this Court. The petition was, however, disposed of vide order dated 7 february 2001, with a direction to the respondents to grant an opportunity to the petitioner to put forth its view point on the issue whether it can be treated as the benami of Byford. Pursuant to the said order, a show cause notice was issued to the petitioner on 9 february 2001. After taking into consideration petitioner s reply dated 22 February 2001, the collector has passed the impugned order.

( 4 ) THE order is challenged on diverse grounds, namely: (i) the Collector of Sales Tax has no power, jurisdiction or authority to hold that Byford and the petitioner are one and the same entity inasmuch as there is no provision in any law much less in the Act, conferring authority in the Collector to lift the corporate veil from the face of the petitioner, investigate and return such a finding; (ii) the collector has no power or authority to issue show cause notice under Section 32 of the Act as no power has been conferred by the Administrator on the Collector to take recourse to the action envisaged in the show cause notice; (iii) Section 32 of the Act cannot be applied in the instant case because it contemplates liability in the case of transfer of business and since Byford has not transferred any business to the petitioner, there is no transaction by which the petitioner came into possession of any thing which earlier belonged to the Byford; (iv) a business which is not exigible to the Sales Tax does not attract the provisions of section 32 and since in the instant case not only was there any transfer of business, much less there was