Dominant-object test for hotel food supplies determines whether the transaction is sale or service for sales tax purposes.

Supply of food and drinks by hotels and restaurants was assessed by applying the dominant-object test: if the transaction was chiefly a sale of food, with service only incidental, it could attract sales tax; if the substance was rendering service and food was merely incidental, it would not amount to sale. The character of each transaction depended on its factual setting, including counter sales, outdoor supply, or separate service charges, and had to be determined by the assessing authority under the relevant definition of sale. Writ petitions challenging this issue were held premature because the facts had not yet been determined.

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Issues: Whether supply of food and drinks by hotels and restaurants constituted a sale exigible to sales tax, and whether the writ petitions could be entertained before the assessing authority determined the facts.

Analysis: The governing test was whether the dominant object of the transaction was sale of food or rendering of service, with food supplied as an incidental part of service. Where meals are supplied across the counter or outside the premises, or where separate service charges are levied, the transaction may indicate a sale; where the substance of the arrangement is service and the supply of food is merely incidental, it may not amount to sale. The factual character of each transaction had therefore to be ascertained by the assessing authority under section 2(o) of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act.

Conclusion: The question whether the transactions amounted to sale depended on the facts of each case and had to be decided by the assessing authority; the writ petitions were premature and not maintainable at that stage.

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