Congress men shut down Srinivas Shetty’s restaurant in Mumbai over bill note

www.mangaloretoday.com

Mumbai, July 23, 2013(Mid-Day): Protest and dissent is something that politicians cannot digest easily. A blatant example of this was seen in Mumbai after Congress leaders forced an eatery in Parel to shut down because the owner had printed bills with a note slamming the UPA government.The owner of the eatery, Srinivas Shetty, had printed the note on food bills as a mark of protest on tax on AC restaurants.

The note on bill receipts read: “As per UPA government, eating money (2G, Coal, CWG scam) is a necessity and eating food in an AC restaurant is a luxury”.On getting to know of the matter, Congress workers barged into the restaurant Aditi Pure Veg, located on Dr E Borges Road opposite KEM Hospital on Monday, and asked the owner to close the place.

 

 

The protest was led Ganesh Kumar Yadav, who is the city president of the party’s youth wing. Congress MLA Kalidas Kolambkar is also said to have accompanied him. They apparently told the owner that they had been instructed from Delhi to do what they were doing.

They also approached Bhoiwada police against the owner of the place for defamation.Later, a non-cognisable complaint (NC) was slapped on the proprietor. He has been booked for printing matter known to be defamatory (Section 501 of IPC).

The central government has introduced service tax on eating at air-conditioned restaurants in recent times.


I wanted to do it and I did, says Srinivas Shetty
“I have my opinion and India being an independent country, I have the right to express my views.  Because of the government including all AC eateries in its purview for paying service tax, I suffered losses and I had to shut down the AC section of my restaurant altogether,” Shetty says.

 

He continued, “It’s been 15 days since I got this thing printed on the bills, and many customers came and congratulated me over this. Since I had received praise for the act, I did not think something like this would come up. In fact, I had thought of this idea when the law enforcing service tax at all AC restaurants came out. I had wanted to do it since a long time and I did it.”

Shetty pauses to ask a question that the public and clientele have been openly asking. “Where a tea costs a mere Rs 12 why would someone pay 5% service tax? This is not fair on the part of the government, and I chose this way to show my grievance specially since the government did not even hear our association when we went to discuss the matter with them.”

One of the AHAR members, on request of anonymity, said, “It was a private matter between two parties and until we don’t get a complaint we will not interfere.”