Petition in SC seeks appointment of judicial, technical members of GST Tribunals

New Delhi [India], September 19 : A public interest litigation has been moved in the Supreme Court seeking direction to the Centre to complete the process of appointment of judicial and technical members, identify premises for running of benches, develop a website, allocate budget and operationalise the GST Appellate Tribunal in a time bound manner.
Advocate Anoop Prakash Awasthi has filed the petition in the interest of public whereby he demanded to give direction to Centre and Goods and Services Council to complete the process of appointment of Judicial and technical members and identify premises for running of benches, develop website and operationalise the GST Appellate Tribunal in a time bound manner preferably before the 31st December, 2024 or as early as possible.
"The enactment and implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the country in 2017 has been an extraordinary and unprecedented indirect tax reform in the country, however the issue of establishment of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal is a long pending issue since the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 came into 2017, In contradistinction to the judicial adjudicatory authorities established and made operational for all other major revenue and taxation related statutes, the legal adjudicatory mechanism for GST related issues has been limited to approaching the High Courts under their Writ jurisdiction, thus, substantially burdening the Highs Courts with unnecessary litigation," the petition said.
The mechanism for appointment of an appellate authority on judicial side to decide the GST related issues has not been done for last seven years, the petition said.
"The process started in late 2023 but even thereafter it is not a bureaucratic priority to complete the process in a time bound manner by recruiting and operationalising the GST Appellate Tribunal at Delhi and other places. That though the chairperson of the GST Appellate Authority has been appointed on 6th May, 2024, when the Justice (Retd.) Sanjay Kumar Mishra has been administered the oath of the chairperson of GST Appellate Tribunal but nothing further on ground has been done by way of recruitment and appointment of judicial and technical members to the Tribunal," the petition said.
The operational GST Appellate Tribunal at 31 Places or at any place is still a mirage, the petition remarked. Goods and Services Tax came into force in 2017. In February, 2024, Revenue Secretary announced that the GST Appellate Tribunal may begin operation by July or August 2024, according to the petition.
Section 109 of the Central Goods and Services Tax, 2017, in its Chapter XVIII empowers the Central Government on the recommendation of GST Council to constitute an Appellate Tribunal and benches thereof in various states of the country, with the National Bench of the Appellate Tribunal to be established at New Delhi.