Restaurant food sales taxable under Delhi Sales Tax Act where the statute expressly covers hotel and restaurant supplies.

Food and drink supplied in a hotel restaurant were treated as goods transferred to customers for price, bringing the transaction within the definition of sale under the Delhi Sales Tax Act, 1975. The Act's charging and rate provisions were read harmoniously, and section 4(1)(c) was understood to show that food or drink served for consumption in a hotel or restaurant was intended to bear tax. Earlier authority under the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, as extended to Delhi, did not control because the 1975 Act contained a different statutory scheme with an express provision addressing restaurant supplies. The supply in the appellants' restaurant was therefore a taxable sale, and the challenge to sales tax liability failed.

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Issues: Whether sales of food and drinks supplied in a hotel restaurant are taxable under the Delhi Sales Tax Act, 1975, and whether the earlier line of authority on restaurant supplies displaced the specific charging and definitional scheme of that Act.

Analysis: The Act defined dealer, goods and sale in broad terms. Food and drink supplied in a restaurant fell within the expression goods, and the transfer of such food to a customer for price amounted to a sale. The charging and rate provisions were read as a whole, and section 4(1)(c) showed that food or drink served for consumption in a hotel or restaurant was intended to bear tax. The earlier decisions under the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, as extended to Delhi, were held inapplicable because the Delhi Sales Tax Act, 1975 contained a different statutory scheme, including an express provision dealing with food or drink served in hotels and restaurants. Reading the Act harmoniously, the taxability of restaurant sales was not excluded merely because the service occurred in a hotel restaurant.

Conclusion: The supply of food and drink in the appellants' restaurant constituted a taxable sale under the Delhi Sales Tax Act, 1975, and the contention that no sales tax could be levied failed.

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