Ministers' panel on GST Appellate Tribunal may give recommendations within a month: Revenue secretary

The panel of state finance ministers on setting up a GST Appellate Tribunal is likely to give its recommendation within a month, revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Monday.

The GST Council, chaired by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and comprising state ministers, had last week decided to constitute a Group of Ministers (GoM) to address various concerns raised by the states in relation to constitution of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT).

Addressing an Assocham event here, Bajaj said, "We hope to get the final recommendations of the GoM within a month and in the next 6 months we should see a lot of progress on the tribunal front."

The GST Council Secretariat will soon come out with the Terms of Reference (ToR) and names of the members of the GoM.

The GoM is likely to address the concerns of states in light of the Madras High Court order which said that the number of technical members should not exceed the number of judicial members in GSTAT.

The CGST Act had originally envisaged that GSTAT would have one judicial member and two technical members (one each from Centre and states).

The panel would also make recommendations for appropriate amendments in Central GST Act.

The GSTAT would hear appeals against the orders passed by the GST Appellate Authority, which consist of tax officers.

Speaking at the event, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) chairman Vivek Johri said the board is putting together an institutional mechanism to resolve taxpayer grievances electronically.

Also, the CBIC is working on further improving compliance in a non-intrusive way and ensure better coordination between tax officers of Centre and states, he said.

The pendency of GST refunds have come down, Johri said, adding for issuing refunds to risky exporters the entire value chain needs to be re-evaluated.