In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Thursday held that the recommendations of the GST council are not binding on the Union and the State Governments.
A bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud held that the Parliament intended that the recommendations of the GST Council will have persuasive value.
Importantly, the Court held that both the States and Centre can equally legislate on matters of Goods and Service Tax.
“Recommendations of GST council are product of collaborative discussion. It is not imperative that one of the federal units must always possess a higher share”, Justice Chandrachud read out the opeartive portion of the judgment.
The bench stated that Article 279A of the Constitution does not begin with a non-obstante clause and Article 246A does not envisage a repugnancy provision. Indian federalism is a dialogue in which state and centre always engages in a dialogue, the bench stated in a judgment which emphasized the importance of the principles of “cooperative federalism”.
Report to be updated after the full judgment in uploaded.
Frah Saeed is a law graduate specializing in the core field of indirect taxes and is the Co-founder of taxwallah.com. She has authored many publications on GST and is into full-time consultancy on GST to big corporates. She as a part of taxwallah.com heads a team comprising of Chartered Accountants and Advocates and plays a key role in our mission to disseminate GST knowledge to all.
