Ice-cream as cooked food qualifies for sales tax exemption despite no seating and despite being sold with sweets.

Ice-cream was treated as cooked food for the purpose of the exemption entry under the Bombay Sales Tax Act, and sales for immediate consumption at a cabin fell within the entry even though there were no seating arrangements. The Court rejected the argument that the business was mainly one for sweetmeats, holding that ice-cream is not a sweetmeat in its ordinary commercial sense and that a distinction exists between sweets and sweetmeats. The exemption therefore applied to the ice-cream sales and tax could not be levied on that ground.

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Issues: Whether sales of ice-cream made at the respondents' place of business were covered by entry 14 of Schedule A to the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959, and were therefore exempt from tax.

Analysis: Ice-cream was held to be cooked food. The place of business was a cabin where ice-cream was sold for immediate consumption at or near the counter, and the absence of seating arrangements did not prevent the sales from falling within the entry. The contention that the cabin was primarily conducted for the sale of sweetmeats was rejected because ice-cream was not regarded as a sweetmeat in its ordinary meaning, and a distinction was drawn between sweets and sweetmeats. The exemption therefore could not be denied on either of the grounds urged.

Conclusion: The sales of ice-cream were held to fall within entry 14 of Schedule A and were exempt from tax.

Ratio Decidendi: For the purpose of the exemption entry, ice-cream could qualify as cooked food, and a premises used for its sale did not cease to fall within the entry merely because it lacked seating arrangements or because ice-cream was sold there, since ice-cream was not a sweetmeat in the ordinary commercial sense.

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