Bombay HC Reserves Order In PIL Seeking Deferment Of GST Rollout

The Bombay High Court on Thursday reserved its order after hearing both sides in a PIL seeking deferment of the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax Act (GST) till the next financial year of 2018-19.

Though the bench headed by Chief Justice Manjula Chellur would have heard this matter, but as she was not sitting, a bench of Justice VK Tahilramani and Justice SK Shinde heard arguments from Additional Solicitor-General Anil Singh and submissions made by petitioner appearing in person Dr KS Pillai.

As reported earlier, 30 states, with the exception of Jammu and Kashmir, have approved the State GST Act.

Anil Singh submitted that over 6.5 million people have already migrated under the Goods and Services Tax network, thereby, ruling out any possibility of deferment.

Although the petitioner has expressed skepticism at the “preparedness” of the government machinery in the Centre and the states, the big rollout is set to take place in a few days on July 1.

With the objective of ensuring smooth rollout of GST and taking into account, the feedback received from the trade and industry regarding the provisions of deduction of tax at source under Section 51 of the CGST / SGST Act 2017, and collection of tax at source under Section 52 of the CGST / SGST Act 2017, the government has already deferred the implementation of provisions relating to TDS (Section 51) and TCS (Section 52) of the CGST / SGST Act 2017.