india

Updated: Mar 15, 2019 22:43 IST

The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday filed an affidavit before the Allahabad High Court stating that a revised proposal had been sent to the Centre to set up a Goods and Service Tax (GST) Appellate Tribunal in Prayagraj and its regional benches in 19 other districts of the state.

Earlier, the state government had proposed that the tribunal be set up at Lucknow.

Taking the affidavit on record, a division bench of justice Bharati Sapru and justice Piyush Agrawal directed that the matter be list for hearing after two weeks.

The counsel for the petitioner contended that despite a clear-cut provision to set up an appellate tribunal, no GST Tribunal had been set up in the state so far.

As a result, the GST assessees in the state were facing problems, the counsel stated.

Earlier, on February 28 this year, the court, while taking a serious note of the absence of a concrete proposal before the state government and GST Council to set up the GST Appellate Tribunal in the state, had directed the Centre as well as the state government to file better affidavits, providing a cut-off date by which they proposed to set up the tribunal.

In the same order, the court had permitted the state government’s counsel to send a revised proposal.

As regards the first affidavit filed by the state government, stating that a recommendation had been made by it to set up the tribunal in Lucknow, the court had said it was not in accordance with the order passed by the Supreme Court in the case of Madras Bar Association Vs. Union of India and another reported in (2014) 10 SCC 1, which provides that the tribunal be set up at the place where the principal bench of the high court is situated.

“In the present case, the principal bench of the High Court is in Allahabad. This seems to be another dilatory tactic,” the court had observed in its order dated February 28. The court was hearing a writ petition filed by Torque Pharmaceuticals Private Limited.