Safeguards authority issues notices on GST profiteering in 53 cases

The Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS), which probes profiteering complaints under the goods and services tax (GST), has issued investigation initiation notices in 53 cases, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

Shiv Pratap Shukla, the Minister of State for Finance said that as of 23 February, the anti-profiteering authority had received 2,732 refund claims and dispersed ~32.96 billion.

Shukla, in the Rajya Sabha, said that till 23 February the standing committee received 354 complaints alleging that the benefits of reduction in tax rate or input tax credit have not been passed on to the consumers.

Out of the total number of 354 anti-profiteering applications, the Standing Committee has forwarded 65 applications to the Directorate General of Safeguards for investigation.

“Notices of initiation of investigation have been issued by the Directorate General of Safeguards in respect of 53 applications,” Shukla said.

The Standing Committee have sent back 68 applications to the jurisdictional GST authorities as not being antiprofiteering applications and 59 applications to the respective state-level screening committees for reconsideration, he added.

The government had in November set up the National Anti-Profiteering Authority to ensure that consumers get benefit of reduced prices under the GST.

According to the structure of the anti-profiteering mechanism in the GST regime, complaints of local nature would be first sent to the state-level ‘screening committee’ while those of national level will be marked for the Standing Committee.

If the complaints have merit, the respective committees would refer the cases for further investigation to the DGS. The DG Safeguards would take about three months to complete the investigation and send the report to the antiprofiteering authority.