( 1 ) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India (in short the "constitution") has been filed for a direction to the Union of India through its Secretary, Ministry of Industry and National Small Industries Corporation Limited (in short the "nsic") to make payment of statutory dues/ arrears of Sales-tax and other dues/arrears. A further direction has been sought for in respect of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi to restore the certificate of registration under the provisions of the Delhi Sales-tax Act, 1975 (in short the "sales-tax Act" ).

( 2 ) BACKGROUND position, according to the petitioner, is as follows: Petitioner is a proprietorship concern of Shri S. K. Dey, who is a Technocrat and started his career in 1973-74 in Industrial Consultancy and thereafter in association with various reputed consultancy organisations participated in fruitful execution of some major projects in the country. In the year 1981, petitioner got registered under the Sales-tax Act. He successfully executed export orders of various turnkey projects, allied equipments and materials as a sub-supplier of NSIC, during the period from 1982-89. The aforesaid exports were of two types viz. ,

(1) direct exports;

(2) the giftment exports. In respect of said transactions, certain statutory declaration forms were to be supplied by MSIC, which it failed to supply. As these declaration forms were not supplied petitioner had to face ex-parte adjudications by the Sales-tax Authorities and huge demands were raised by them. On some plea or other, the declaration forms were not supplied and even the payments due to the petitioner were not made. The petitioner has been communicating with respondent No. 2- NSIC in this regard but with no fruitful result. Finding no other alternative, petitioner was filed the writ petition with essentially the prayers noted above. Resisting the petition, learned Counsel for respondent No. 2 submitted that though original claim for a contract executed in 1982-83 (23. 11. 1982) was Rs. 59,376. 00, the claim as made in the present petition is more than Rs. 67. 00 lacs at one point of time, and at some other place it has been indicated to be nearly Rs. 72. 00 lacs. Similarly in respect of another contract executed in 1982-83 (20. 3. 1983)originally the amount is indicated to be Rs. 2,38,975. 00, but in the writ petition it has been stated to be Rs. 2,00,91,277. 08 at one place and Rs. 5,37,22,909. 52 at another place. It is further stated that petitioner did not appear before the Sales-tax Authorities and that led to ex-parte adjudications and if any tax has been demanded, respondent No. 2 is not responsible for the same. In any event, it is submitted that the claims are denied by it, and dispute is essentially a money claim and therefore, no writ petition would lie. It is also submitted that a suit was filed in the year 1993 by the petitioner, which was ultimately dismissed for non-payment of Court-fee. Additionally, a writ petition was earlier filed i. e. , CWP 2483/93, which was also dismsed as withdrawn. Petitioner cannot be permitted to make a belated attempt to give highly exaggerated and imaginary figures and make a prayer for payment thereof. Lot of factual disputes are involved and therefore, writ petition should not be entertained. It is pointed out that even claim is raised after long lapse of time, on highly exaggerated and imaginary figures. By way of reply to the stand that the writ petition should not be entertained in respect of money claim, learned Counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on a decision of the Supreme Court in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. and Another v. Dolly Das, (1999) 4 SCC 450=111 (1999) SLT 590, more particularly paras (8) and (9) thereof, which read as follows:

" (8) So far as the contention regarding laches of the respondent in filing the writ petition is concerned, delay, by itself, may not defeat the claim for relief unless the position of the a