Kathmandu, February 5:

The Supreme Court (SC) today issued show cause notices to the government authorities, including the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Cabinet, demanding reasons why they permitted hotels to collect additional service charges from customers.

A single bench of Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Paudel issued the notices following today’s hearing. The bench directed the authorities — the PMO, Ministries of Home, Finance, Labour and Transport Management, and the Nepal Free Hotel Labourers’ Union — to attend the apex court within a week to participate in a hearing to decide whether to issue stay order as demanded by writ petitioners. Four advocates had yesterday filed the writ petition, seeking the apex court order to scrap additional 10 per cent tax levied on hotel and restaurant customers.

They said that the agreement reached between hotel management and staffs to levy additional tax was illegal. The petitioners said the government’s permission to the hotels to collect additional tax from customers was illegal.