OCTOBER 01, 2025

Do we need to carry this?

By Vijay Kumar

GSTAT, India's newly constituted Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal, isn't a court of law-but it certainly dresses the part. With its benches, robes, and reverent silence, it carries the trappings of judicial decorum while operating within the framework of administrative justice. Members will surely be called Lords. Not a court, technically, but say "My Lords" and no one flinches.

But who says only judges should be called Lords? I have seen Commissioners being called so! With straight faces and signed solemnities.

Tasked with resolving over 4 lakh pending appeals, GSTAT arrives not with a gavel, but with a promise to untangle the knots of tax litigation with speed, clarity, and a touch of digital ambition. The forms are elaborate, the procedures layered, and the expectations sky-high. But beneath the protocol lies a quiet hope-that this tribunal might finally bring closure to crores of contested crores.

During the launch of the GST Appellate Tribunal last week in New Delhi, the President of the Tribunal, Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra said,

This will not only be the largest tribunal in the country having more than 116 members, 32 benches, 45 locations. Most importantly, it will be having more than 4 lakh pendency in cases from day one.

https://youtu.be/J__mrcLmDWI

Yes, the largest tribunal is here - with 4 lakh cases! It seems the ITAT (INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL) has 63 Benches and 126 Members, but the pendency is only about 35000 appeals, compared to the 4 lakhs which the GSTAT is going to start with.

From day one, GSTAT inherits 4 lakh unresolved cases. That's not a backlog-it's a legacy. Each case arrives with its own emotional baggage, legal ambiguity, and a prayer for closure. The benches are ready. The portal is... buffering. Justice, please wait.

When are they going to clear these four lakh appeals? And as they clear, new cases will start coming in. Is it worth carrying this agonising burden? Should you make a new Tribunal struggle with 4 lakh cases to start with?

The story of a case in the Tribunal involves an arduous process: The GSTAT appeal form is a marvel of modern paperwork and digital ingenuity, demanding everything from your PAN to your patience. It's not a form-it's a rite of passage. This is how it works:

1. Start with an appellate order (No shortage - there are already 4 lakh such orders ready for appeal to the Tribunal)

2. Filing of appeal in the Tribunal with payment of a ten per cent deposit of the disputed amount.

3. The appeal will be processed in the registry and all objections have to be rectified.

4. There is an appeal fee ranging from five thousand rupees to twenty-five thousand rupees.

5. Copies of the appeal should be endorsed to the respondent who can file his reply and the appellant/petitioner can be allowed by the Tribunal to file a rejoinder.

6. The Tribunal has to grant a hearing to the parties and this hearing can be adjourned several times for various reasons.

7. After the arguments are heard, the Tribunal can either deliver the order or reserve judgement.

8. Most often the orders are dictated in the open court and not more than five or six orders can be dictated in a day.

9. The dictated orders have to be typed, again corrected by the Members, retyped, signed and then they become orders of the Tribunal.

This is a very time-consuming process. Assuming that each Member will sit in a Single Bench (initially) and pass five orders per day, assuming that each Member works for 200 days in a year, he will pass 1000 orders in a year. And hundred Members will pass 100,000 orders in a year (which is a big assumption). Then it will take four years to clear the opening balance of four lakh cases and after four years at least two lakh new cases will accrue. So, this will be another tribunal promoting docket explosion. Now, we don't need storerooms to keep all these files as the filing will be digital. But each appeal will be at least a hundred pages, which means the four lakh pending cases will bring in 4 Crore pages. That's not a docket-it's a digital Himalaya. Are we digitally capable of handling such massive data in several forms? How many times will the portal crash? And what will happen to the appeals and hearings if the portal takes a vacation when the Tribunal doesn't? Will the Tribunal provide high-speed internet that can handle huge data? Will internet access be given to the appellants and respondents?

Uploads fail, downloads stall, and somewhere in the cloud, justice waits for better bandwidth.

Yes, it is a rich tribunal with an opening balance of 4 lakh cases! Assuming there are four thousand lawyers/consultants ready to represent clients in the GSTAT, each counsel getting an average of 100 cases and if they charge a fee of Rs. 25,000/- per case, each counsel will get about 25 lakh rupees and the consulting community will make a neat 1000 crores if my math is right. Yes, it is a rich tribunal.

GSTAT: Where justice meets jackpot.

The Budget allocation for the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) for the FY 2025-26 is Rs. 210,04,70,000/- (210 Crores) as revealed by the Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Choudhary in the Lok Sabha on 21st July, 2025.

Justice does not come discounted.

The President also mentioned that the Members will be going for training to NACIN - National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics at Palasamudram, Andhra Pradesh. Perhaps, this is the first time that Tribunal Members are sent for training and that too in an institution like NACIN which is basically meant to build future IRS officers. It is a great achievement for NACIN that now they are going to make judges! But there is a National Judicial Academy at Bhopal where judges are usually sent for skill upgradation. Maybe NACIN has better facilities.

Coming back to my question - should we carry forward this burden of 4 lakh cases? What can we do with them?

Just dump them.

Sabka Vishwas 2.0:

Maybe we can solve a lot of problems and even make some money for the government by just deleting these cases. We can bring in a new Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme - something like the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019, which should work like this:

1. The scheme will apply to all cases where appeal can be filed in the Tribunal after 31 st December 2025.

2. The taxpayer has to pay an amount of 20 per cent of the disputed tax amount and the appeal will be deemed to be allowed in full, that is the order of the lower appellate authority would be deemed as struck down and no further proceedings will be initiated against the taxpayer if it pays the 20 per cent amount.

3. This way, most of the appeals can be closed and the Tribunal can start with a fairly clean state, the assessees need not be in anxiety for years together and the government will also make some worthwhile money.

4. The Tribunal can start its work in a slow, reasonable, fair and judicial pace.

Why not launch a Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme? Pay 20%, delete stress, and get a government hug. It worked once - almost did. It might work again. After all, closure is cheaper than litigation.

In GSTAT, let us not make the journey the judgment.

GSTAT may not be a court, but it wears the robes, speaks the lingo, and carries the burden of restoring order to a system long overdue for resolution. If it delivers, it could become a benchmark for taxpayer-friendly adjudication-efficient, accessible, and maybe even elegant. If it falters, the cost won't just be fiscal-it'll be faith in the very idea of administrative justice. Perhaps that's why some whisper of a Sabka Vishwas 2.0: a graceful exit for legacy disputes, a shortcut to closure, and a reminder that sometimes, resolution is better than excellence. For now, we gather our documents, brace for procedural aerobics, and hope that this tribunal brings not just resolution, but relief.