‘GST unfairly equates amusement parks with casinos, race course’

year,” said Santokh Chawla of IAAI, who runs Fun ‘n’ Food Village Amusement and Water Park in New Delhi.

“Categorising us alongside casinos, betting and race course is really unfortunate for an audience, which caters to family entertainment and recreation. It is a social infrastructure, which provides outdoor entertainment to children and youth, who are otherwise glued to gadgets and the digital world,” Chawla added.

Another IAAPI representative Ajay Sarin said the recreational park industry would like to urge the government to treat the industry at par with hospitality and restaurants which fall in the GST slab of 12%-18%.

“Globally, in markets where ever GST has been introduced, the rate is under 10%. In Australia it is 10%, Singapore 7%, Japan 5%, Malaysia 6% and Dubai is 0%,” he added.

Syed Sarwar Chishty, the complainant in the Ajmer Dargah blast case, will file an application for a fresh probe, Chishty’s lawyer Idrish Mugal told HT.

The blast at the Sufi shrine in Ajmer in October 2007 killed three and injured 17. A special court in Jaipur on March 8 found Hindu extremists Devendra Gupta, Bhavesh Patel and now deceased Sunil Joshi guilty, while it acquitted former RSS member Aseemanand and six others.

The National Investigation Agency on April 3 filed a closure report that cleared Sadhvi Pragya Singh, senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar and two others of involvement in the case.

“NIA should have continued with the probe regardless of the witnesses turning hostile, but it dropped the investigation voluntarily, and against the spirit of its own charge sheets,” said Mugal.