Service Charge: Is It A Charge Or A Choice?

In January, 2017, many newspapers and articles covered a story where they reported that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has declared the service charges tacked onto the bill by restaurants and hotels to be a choice, and not mandatory. Just when every consumer started to breathe a sigh of relief, a large number of restaurants started to exercise their rights of admission, and put up a notice on the entry stating "WE CHARGE SERVICE TAX IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT", with the insinuation being if the customer did not want to pay service charge, they should go to another establishment. Now it becomes fairly obvious that since a large number of restaurants started to put these notices up, the customers would have no option left, but to pay the arbitrary service charge @5 to10% on their food bills.