GST Appellate tribunals may see the light of the day – GoM ready with its report on GST appellate tribunals.

It appears that the GST Appellate tribunals can see the light of the day soon, GoM has readied its report on GST appellate tribunals. Considering the proposals of the GST Council they have made some recommendations, which if accepted by the GST Council, the work on formation of GST Appellate tribunals can start.

Following are the recommendations made by GoM:
1. Amendment in Section 110 to replace Government with State Government, to enable state governments to relax the experience condition in the appointment of members, currently only the Centre was empowered to do so.
2. Relaxing the experience criterion for appointment of state technical members.
3. States to have more than one bench, based on population, or number of registered and active GST users.
4. A four-member search and selection committee was set up for the appointment of members to the benches.

Amongst others, the major issue in formation of the GST appellate tribunal was the number of technical members on a bench, which were overpowering the Judicial member.

Interestingly, it seems that the GST council had proposed that each regional bench consist of a judicial officer equivalent to a high court judge, and a senior tax officer from either the Centre or state as a technical member.

If this is a settled issue between the centre and the state government, everything then seems to be falling in place.