 "Arun Jaitley")
Making an impassioned plea to safeguard Parliament's powers, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday asked the Congress party to reconsider its opposition to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill and withdraw its insistence on handing over dispute resolution under GST to the Supreme Court.
Jaitley's plea came even as the apex court cleared the path for Chief Minister Harish Rawat to resume governance in Uttarakhand after one-and-a-half months of dramatic twists and turns and Centre's imposition of President's Rule in the state.
Replying to the discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the Finance and Appropriations Bills, Jaitley said: "If India has to grow, please reconsider your position on having a provision (GST Bill) that would surrender legislative jurisdiction to the courts."
The Finance Bill and Appropriation Bill were later approved by the upper house by voice vote.
"Step by step, brick by brick the edifice of India's Legislature is being destroyed," Jaitley said, referring to the Congress proposal to appoint a judge to settle disputes between the Centre and states on GST.
Continuing on the issue, he termed Congress' action as a misadventure. According to The Indian Express, Jaitley said: “For heaven’s sake, I beseech you in the interest of Indian democracy not to go on this misadventure… With the manner in which encroachment of legislative and executive authority by India’s judiciary is taking place, probably financial power and budget making is the last power that you have left. Taxation is the only power which states have.”
"This is a political issue ... you can't hand over this power to the judiciary," he added.
On the Congress demand for a constitutional cap of 18% on GST, Jaitley said that though he had no problem with the rate proposed there could not be a constitutional limit placed in case adverse situations arose in future.
"There cannot be a uniform tax for all commodities. There are 'aam aadmi' (common man) commodities that could attract 5-6% tax... that the GST Council will decide. But why should luxury products like a BMW car be taxed only 18%," he asked.
In this connection, he said that the new fiscal had begun on a hopeful note with India's indirect tax collections for April rising 42% to over Rs 64,000 crore.
Not the first time Jaitley has spoken
In October last year, after the apex court struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, Jaitley had responded by saying that that democracy in India could not be "a tyranny of the unelected".
He had argued that weakening parliamentary sovereignty was not a necessary condition for strengthening independence of judiciary.
The apex court had struck down the 99th amendment to the Constitution, passed unanimously by the two Houses of Parliament and 20 legislative Assemblies in 2014. It had said that the amendment, which sought to replace the 22-year-old collegium system where judges appoint judges, impinged on the concepts of separation of powers and the basic structure of the Constitution. The NJAC Act had envisaged the presence of the law minister in the commission, while the prime minister and leader of the Opposition, apart from the chief justice, would comprise a body to select two eminent persons that would in turn appoint judges.
In a Facebook post titled 'The NJAC judgment - An Alternative View?', Jaitley, himself a former law minister, had argued against the move and said that the judgement was based on political bashing. He had argued that history belied any claims that only the institution of judiciary could protect democracy.
In the post, Jaitley had argued that the Supreme Court, in its focus on upholding the primacy of one basic structure, namely the independence of judiciary, had diminished five other basic structures of the Constitution, namely, parliamentary democracy, an elected government, the council of ministers, an elected prime minister and the elected leader of the opposition.
Judiciary vs Legislature
A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in October last year, had declared the National Democratic Alliance government’s law for appointing judges of appellate courts unconstitutional.
But that is not the only case where the courts and Legislature have butted heads recently.
During his impassioned plea in Parliament on Wednesday, Jaitley, according to The Indian Express report, said that despite the existence of the National Disaster Response Fund and State Disaster Response Fund, the apex court has asked the government to create a new fund for disaster mitigation. Speaking against the apex court's move, he said, “We have passed the Appropriation Bill, how do I get this money from outside. There cannot be any expenditure unless approved by Parliament.”
Jaitley was referring to the Supreme Court's judgement on a public interest litigation by Swaraj Abhiyan on drought.
In a strong indictment of Centre and states' handling of the drought situation, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said if state governments maintain an "ostrich-like attitude", Centre cannot wash its hands of constitutional responsibility, since the "buck stops" with it.
The apex court directed the Centre to constitute a national disaster response force, as mandated by the Disaster Management Act, 2005, within the next six months. It also directed it to set up a disaster mitigation fund within three months, as mandated by the Act and formulate a national plan on disaster management at the earliest.
The Centre's recent attempt at ousting Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat and the state's Congress government through imposition of President's Rule also came a cropper when, on April 21, the state's high court quashed the imposition of President’s Rule. On May 6, the Supreme Court ordered a floor test in the Uttarakhand Assembly, thereby putting an end to the Centre's argument that a political crisis in the state had justified the imposition of President's Rule.
