CHENNAI : Certain provisions of GST Act relating to powers of the Union government to constitute Appellate Tribunals have been put to test in the HC. The first bench of the then Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice P T Asha, before which the PIL from advocate V Vasanthakumar came up for hearing last week, ordered notice returnable by September 17.
Among other things, petitioner contended that as per the provisions of the law, each State and Area Benches of Appellate Tribunal should consist of one judicial member and the State is empowered to designate its senior most judicial member as the chief. They should also accommodate one technical member each from the State and the Centre. This is contrary to the law laid down by the SC wherein it had held that the number of technical members should not exceed number of judicial members.
It is necessary that those who are called upon to discharge judicial or quasi-judicial powers should have legal expertise, judicial experience and legal training and therefore, in the GST Appellate Tribunal, the number of technical members cannot be more than the number of judicial members, he argued.