Context: Rajya Sabha passed the bill to increase the age limit of the President and members of the GST Appellate Tribunals.

Bill on GST Appellate Tribunals: Key Features

• Objective: The Bill increases the age limit of the President and members of the GST Appellate Tribunals from 67 to 70 years and 65 to 67 years, respectively, in alignment with the age limits of other tribunals.
• Other Bills: The Rajya Sabha also passed the Provisional Collection of Taxes Bill, 2023 that replaces the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1931.
  • Both the bills were passed by Lok Sabha recently. 

About GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT)

• Objective: Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal is the forum of second appeal in GST laws and the first common forum of dispute resolution between Centre and States. 
  • First Appellate Body: Appellate Authorities provided under the Central and State GST Acts. 
  • GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) will ensure that there is uniformity in the dispute resolution and implementation of GST across the country. 
• History: GSTAT was established earlier, but struck down in 2019 by the Madras High Court. Since then the burden of High Courts have increased due to GST related litigation. 
• Re-introduced: A bill was introduced recently to re-establish the GSTAT earlier, and the bodies were notified in September this year. 
• Age Incongruence: However, SC pointed out the anomaly related to age in the GSTAT, which was not in consonance with the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, which sets age limits as 70 and 67 for Presidents and members of tribunals.
  • Bill to correct the anomaly was passed by Lok Sabha, and has been passed by Rajya Sabha too. 

What Happens when a bill passed by Lok Sabha, is returned by Rajya Sabha without passing?

• Ordinary Bill: If there is a deadlock over an ordinary bill, the speaker of Lok Sabha can decide to call for a Joint Sitting of both the houses, under Article 108. 
  • If the Second House rejects the bill altogether or does not take any action for six months, a deadlock is deemed to have taken place.  
• Money Bill: In case of Money Bill, the Rajya Sabha can not reject the bill. It should be returned back to Lok Sabha with or without recommendations from Rajya Sabha within 14 days. 
• Constitutional Bill: In case of Constitutional Amendment bill, if a bill is rejected by Rajya Sabha, the bill ends there. 

Source: Indian Express