CHANDURKAR, C.J.

All the above-mentioned petitions have been filed by hotel owners challenging the constitutional validity of item 150 in First Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and the demand for sales tax on the basis that they are liable to pay sales tax on articles of food and drink supplied by them to the customers in their hotels under section 3(2) read with item 150 in the First Schedule to the Act.

2. Writ Petition No. 256 of 1985 is filed by the Tamil Nadu Hotels Association represented by its President. The State Government has filed its counter in all the other petitions but was not able to file the counter in W.P. No. 256 of 1985, but having regard to the fact that the questions involved in all these petitions were purely questions of law, we have heard Mr. Ramachandran who appeared on behalf of the petitioner, along with the counsel who appeared in the several petitions mentioned above. It is not now in dispute that the several petitioners in these writ petitions run either hotels and restaurants where rooms are let out to the guests and articles of food are served in the restaurants. By way of illust