Case Law Details
M/S Sheen Golden Jewels (India) Pvt Ltd Vs State Tax Officer (Kerala High Court)
Core Question as the petitioners put it,is does the State have the legislative competence to enact section 174 and save the past taxation events—comprising levy, assessment, and recovery—when Entry 54, List II, which is the field of legislation empowering the State, stood omitted permanently with effect from 16.09.2017?
Held by High Court
All the petitioners contend that the KSGST Act came into being because of the Constitutional Amendment. And that very Constitutional Amendment has put paid to many other enactments—for example, the Kerala Value Added Tax Act, 2003. So with the Entry 54 of List II unavailable for the State to incorporate Section 174 of the KSGST Act, the whole saving mechanism vis-.a-vis transactions before 16.09.2017 crumbles.
I am afraid it is a fallacy on the petitioners’ part to contend that the State lacks the legislative power to enact Section 174 of the KSGST Act. Article 246A is the special provision (if it can be called a provision) on the Goods and Services Tax. It empowers, as rightly contended by the learned Senior Counsel Shri Venkataraman, both the Union and the State, for the first time, to have simultaneous—not concurrent—powers to legislate on certain items. Indeed, concurrency yields to the doctrine of repugnancy, but simultaneous legislative power does not. That is, both the legislatures, say one from the Union and the other from the State, coexist—operate in the same sphere subject to other constitutional safeguards.
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