By A.G. NOORANI
On the Jammu-Srinagar national highway after roads were temporarily closed owing to landslides in Jammu on July 17. Under the new tax regime, New Delhi will be empowered to collect the sales tax though the GST, the right for which was withing the domain of the State government. PHOTO/Press Trust of India
To empower New Delhi with collection of taxes on goods and services “with the concurrence of the Government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir” is to surrender the exclusive powers enjoyed by the State to the Centre.
THE Constitution (101st Amendment) Act, 2016, received the President’s assent on September 8, 2016. Its 20 sections made elaborate provisions on the Goods and Services Tax (GST), amended a host of provisions of the Constitution and established a Goods and Services Tax Council. It did not apply to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Act had been under discussion for long. Kashmir did not lag behind. The subject has been debated since at least 2013. The sole issue was whether to acquiesce in yet another unconstitutional Order by the President under Article 370 of the Constitution or make a State law bringing the tax structure in line with the tax system all over India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre wanted to impose the law by a Central fiat in collusion with the ever-compliant People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in coalition with the BJP led by Mehbooba Mufti. The basic issue was Kashmir’s autonomy.
It was not only the opposition parties, the National Conference (N.C.) and the State Congress, that opposed the Centre’s plans. So did the Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Federation (KTMF), the Kashmir Economic Alliance and the Kashmir Traders Federation. On July 1, they joined hands to observe a shutdown. The police detained scores of business leaders from a sit-down at Lal Chowk, Srinagar’s business hub. So much for civil liberties in Kashmir. The Centre had fixed June 30 as the deadline for the GST rollout. Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, the architect of the coalition in talks with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)-BJP pointsman Ram Madhav, was in a frenzy in view of the public opinion in Kashmir. The BJP had given an ultimatum—not later than July 6. By now the BJP had had the full measure of Drabu. On April 21 he flew to Jammu to present himself at the BJP’s office at Trikuta Nagar and received a rebuff on coalition issues. He attended the midnight launch of the GST in the Central Hall of Parliament.
But since public opinion had to be placated, motions of consultation had to be gone through with an all-party consultative group and a special session of the State Legislature from July 6-8. Drabu even attended a meeting of the GST Council in New Delhi besides meeting Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. He assured all that the Assembly would enact the law by July 6. A charade was enacted. The writer acknowledges here his debt to the excellent reportage in the Srinagar daily Greater Kashmir from which this resume is drawn.
Assembly resolution
The Resolution moved in the Assembly on July 4 read: “This House resolves that the Government of Jammu and Kashmir may give consent to the adoption of GST regime by application of relevant amendments made to the Constitution of India in a modified form to safeguard the existing constitutional position of J&K in the Union of India and the legislative powers under the Constitution of J&K.” It was passed on July 5.
On July 6, before the Assembly could vote on the government’s Bill, the President made the Order under Article 370. It had been prepared days earlier. Six pages long, it is the most elaborate Order made under Article 370 since 1954. On July 7, the Governor, N.N. Vohra, accorded his assent to the Jammu and Kashmir Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, soon after it was passed by the Assembly and the Legislative Council. But Drabu did not inform the Assembly about the Order, as M.Y. Tarigami of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) pointed out before the Bill was put to vote in the Assembly.
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