Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, June 14: Oppos-ition National Conference (NC) today asked the State Government to implement GST on its own terms, saying the blueprint of new tax regime readied by the party in 2012 protects the fiscal autonomy and special status of the State. The party termed the current form of GST unacceptable and warned to fight it tooth and nail, if implemented.
Addressing a press conference here, senior NC leader and former Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather said that if the Constitutional Amendment (101 passed by the Parliament) is applied in Jammu and Kashmir in its present form, the party “will fight it tooth and nail”. “We have very clear stand on it. We will not allow it, we will not accept it. GST, at the cost of our special position and fiscal autonomy, is not acceptable to NC,” he added.
The former Finance Minister said the NC-led State Government in 2012 had prepared a blueprint as it had foreseen the implementation of the GST. “We prepared a blueprint to implement GST on our own terms by preserving the State’s special position and fiscal autonomy. We took expert opinion of the best consultant in the Supreme Court. He said it was legal. We sent the proposal to the Cabinet which referred it to a Sub-Committee which okayed it and sent it back to the cabinet,” he added.
Click here to watch video
“A copy of that blueprint is with the Empowered Committee (of the finance ministers of various states). That blueprint can be a way forward. Let the Government study that,” Rather said. He asked the incumbent regime to “at least examine it”. “We tell them that we will impose our own tax. If the Government of India (GoI) wants to impose CGST (Central GST), we will impose our own here whatever is the GoI’s share, we will give them that,” he added.
Asked if the State Government, which enjoys a majority in the legislature, implements the Constitutional Amendment 101 in its original form, Rather said, “the State Government will be playing with fire and it will have dangerous consequences”. He said the State would be surrendering its power to the Centre if the GST is implemented in its present form. “The State will lose its authority. We will have no powers to revise the taxes which the present finance minister (Haseeb Drabu) has promised the business community,” he added.
“He cannot do that. It is the GST Council which has all the powers. The State cannot touch the law passed by the Parliament. It will increase the powers of the Centre and automatically reduce the residual powers of the State,” he said. The NC leader accused the State Government of being confused over the issue.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
