The learned Solicitor General took us through English and American legal literature of vintage value and alien milieu. They enlightened us but did not apply fully, as explained by my learned brother. Had they been earlier cited, had been seriously considered; But India is India. It lives in its one lakh villages, thousands ot towns, millions of pavement pedlars and wuyside victuallers, corner coffee shops and tea stalls, eating houses and restaurants and some top-notch parlours. Habits vary, conventions differ and one rigid rule cannot apply in divere situations. If you go to a coffee house, order two dosas, eat one and carry the other home, you buy the dosas. You may have the cake and eat it too, like a child which bites a part and tells daddy that he would eat the rest at home. Myriad situations, where the transaction is a sale of a meal, or item to eat or part of a package of service plus must not be governed by standard rule. In mere restaurants and non-residential hotels, many of these transactions are sales and taxable. Nor are additional services invariably components of what you pay for. You may go to an aironditioned cloth-shop or sweet-meat store or handicraft~ emporium where cups of tea may be given, dainty damsels may serve or sensuoll!s magazines kept for reading. They are device~ to attrac~ customers who buy the commodity and the price paid is taxable as sale. The substance of the transaction, the dominant object, the
