The PIL has been filed before the Supreme Court seeking the constitution of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal.
The PIL has been filed by Advocate Amit Sahni claiming that the citizens aggrieved are constrained to approach respective high courts in the absence of a Tribunal and the same is overburdening work of the high courts as well.
Mr. Sahni had earlier made a representation to the Ministry of Finance and also to the GST Council, and requested that appropriate and expeditious steps must be taken in order to constitute the Appellate Tribunal as mandated under Section 109 of the Central Goods and Services Act, 2017 to avoid the huge backlog of cases.
“In absence of an Appellate Tribunal, the litigants are not able to get justice within a reasonable period and the same is causing extreme hardship to the litigants across the country,” the PIL said.
It said that the constitution of national and other benches of Appellate Tribunal has become an absolute necessity of the hour and the respondents cannot drag its constitution for an indefinite period.
The petition further said that the period of limitation to file an appeal before the tribunal, i.e., 90 days, cannot be extended by way of an administrative order by the Centre in contravention of statutory provisions, and more particularly such extension cannot be given for an indefinite period.
He also said that as “no steps have been taken to constitute either the National Bench or other benches, thereby the poor litigants are facing a lot of hardships to pursue their cases there.
“Appellate process is pending in many cases arising against the orders/directions passed by the appellate authority on the ground of absence of any appellate tribunal and thus defying the very objectives of introducing the GST Act,” the PIL filed by Sahni further said.
The petition, which is likely to come up for hearing shortly, said that even after four years of the Central Goods and Services Act coming into existence, the tribunal has not been constituted.
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