Process to pick GSTAT judicial and tech members to start after Budget

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra will initiate the process of selection and appointment of judicial and technical members for the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) after the presentation of the budget, officials said.

The central government is aiming to make the tribunal functional by the end of November and has already initiated the process of shifting anti-profiteering cases to the GSTAT principal bench from the Competition Commission of India (CCI). «We are putting all efforts to make the principal bench operational by the end of November and the process of selection and appointment will start immediately after the budget,» a senior government official told ET. Separately, a technical team is working on a dedicated online portal for electronic filing of appeals, officials said, adding that the portal will be ready by September.

The Centre had notified the 31-bench GSTAT with one principal bench in Delhi last September. However, the process of selection was delayed. In May, the Centre appointed retired Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra as president of GSTAT. The finance ministry has issued vacancy circulars for 63 judicial members and 33 technical members for the Centre and states together and has invited applications for the appointment of group B and group C employees. The GST Council in its 53rd meeting on June 22 decided to provide three-months time for filing appeals before the GST Appellate Tribunal beyond the earlier deadline of August 5 and also approved to fix a monetary limit of ₹20 lakh