New Delhi | The government has set in motion the process of making GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) fully functional and has appointed technical and judicial members for various benches of the tribunal.
The government had in May 2024 appointed Justice (Retd.) Sanjaya Kumar Mishra as the President of the Principal Bench of GSTAT.
As per a notification dated August 4, 2025, the government has appointed Mayank Kumar Jain, retired judge of the Allahabad High Court, as a juidicial member of the bench. Retired IAS officer A Venu Prasad and retired IRS officer Anil Kumar Gupta will be the Technical Member (State) and Technical Member (Centre) respectively of GSTAT, Principal Bench, New Delhi.
States too will have to appoint technical members in their respective state benches to make the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) fully functional, which will help expedite dispute resolution.
The government has already notified 31 state benches of GSTAT.
For the state benches, the government has in total appointed 31 Technical Members and 52 judicial members.
Only a few states, like Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar, and Maharashtra/Goa, have sent their recommendations for appointment of technical members in GSTAT in their respective states.
Currently, in the absence of a functioning GSTAT, all disputes between a taxpayer and GST department go to High Courts or Supreme Court which take lot of time in resolving them.
Also, the delay in dispute resolution results in blocking of capital, and hence the industry has been pressing the Government to quickly operationalise GSTAT.
The delay in setting up GSTAT was also noted by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance which has asked the Finance Ministry to adopt a "time-bound" approach and "actively pursue and coordinate" with all states to make GSTAT benches fully functional.
The revenue department in its Action Taken Report to the Standing Committee has assured that hearing of cases by the GSTAT benches will start "very soon".
The Parliamentary Committee, in its observation which was tabled in the Lok Sabha on August 4, acknowledged that numerous considerations, infrastructure developments, and formalities are needed to be addressed before the operationalisation of GSTAT.
"Nonetheless, given the time that has elapsed since the notification for its inception, the Committee recommend that utmost efforts be made to expedite and complete the remaining work related to GSTAT, ensuring it is operationalised at the earliest so that the envisaged benefits can be reaped without any further delay," the Standing Committee on Finance had said.
Parliament in March 2023 had approved setting up of GSTAT. Thereafter, in December 2023, the GST law was amended to cap the age for president and members of the GST appellate at 70 years and 67 years, respectively.
The idea of setting up of GSTAT was originally part of the Central GST Act (CGST), 2017. However, the setting up of the tribunal was delayed as its composition was challenged in courts.
The CGST Act had originally envisaged that GSTAT would have one judicial member and two technical members (one each from Centre and states). This was challenged in the Madras High Court, which held the composition as unconstituional.
Thereafter, the GST Council, which comprises finance ministers from Centre and all states and UTs, in July 2022, set up a Group of Ministers (GoM) to suggest changes in the composition of the tribunal.
The panel, in its report, suggested that the state benches of the GSTAT should consist of two judicial members, and one technical member each from the Centre and states, besides a retired Supreme Court judge as President.
The GSTAT Principal Bench would have a President and one judicial member and two technical members (one each from Centre and state).
Commenting on the new appointments, BDO India, Partner, Indirect Tax, Karthik Mani said now the next steps are - the appointment of technical members (State) by all states, wherever pending, and finalisation of the infrastructure such as space and support staff, which would conclude all activities for making GSTAT functional.
"The taxpayers are eagerly awaiting functional GSTAT, since it would pave the way to resolve outstanding GST disputes, which have been unresolved for a while due to lack of functioning GSTAT as well as give certainty to the positions adopted by the taxpayers for discharging their tax liability," Mani said.
Grant Thornton Bharat Partner Manoj Mishra said: "If state-level coordination progresses swiftly, we could see the first benches begin operations before the year end".
