Luxury tax applies where a resort-like establishment satisfies the hotel definition and Article 227 review finds no perversity.

An establishment was treated as a hotel, rather than essentially a hospital, because the evidence showed accommodation and amenities consistent with leisure and resort use, package-based pricing, guest profiles, and no treatment-driven billing structure; on that basis, luxury tax under the Kerala Tax on Luxuries Act, 1986 was attracted. The court also reiterated that supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 is limited to patent perversity, jurisdictional error, or gross failure of justice, and is not available to correct mere factual or legal errors. As no perversity or record-based infirmity was shown in the Tribunal's findings, no interference was warranted and the order was affirmed.

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Issues: Whether the petitioner's establishment was a hotel, and not essentially a hospital, so as to attract luxury tax under the Kerala Tax on Luxuries Act, 1986; and whether the Tribunal's factual findings and legal conclusion called for interference in supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: The Tribunal's conclusion rested on detailed factual findings regarding the nature of the establishment, the accommodation and amenities offered, the guest profiles, the package-based pricing, the absence of a treatment-driven billing structure, and the predominance of leisure and resort features. On those materials, it held that the establishment answered the statutory definition of a hotel and that the amenities provided amounted to luxury provided in a hotel. The Court also applied the settled limits of interference under Article 227, noting that supervisory jurisdiction is not to be exercised to correct mere errors of fact or law and can be invoked only where there is patent perversity, gross failure of justice, or jurisdictional error. No material was shown to establish that the Tribunal's findings were perverse or unsupported by the record.

Conclusion: The establishment was held liable to luxury tax as a hotel, and no ground for interference with the Tribunal's order was made out.

Final Conclusion: The Tribunal's order sustaining luxury tax on the petitioner's establishment stood affirmed in supervisory review, and the petition failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Under Article 227, interference with a tribunal's factual and legal conclusions is warranted only where the findings are patently perverse, jurisdictionally flawed, or result in gross injustice; where the statutory definition of hotel is satisfied on the evidence, luxury tax is attracted.

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