Subramanian Swamy To Move To SC Asking Government To Replace Foreign Institutions With Indian Banks In GSTN

Subramanian Swamy On GSTN

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has threatened Arun Jaitley that he will move the matter to Supreme Court if his demand to replace majority stake of private entities like HDFC and ICICI bank in GSTN with Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India is not met.

What is GSTN?
GSTN is a Goods and Service Tax Network, a non-government and private limited company, which was incorporated on March 28, 2013, to provide IT infrastructure and services to the Central Government, taxpayers and other stakeholders for the implementation of Goods and Service tax.

GST bill will be implemented in India from 1st April, 2017. Goods and Sales Tax will be levied on the manufacture, sale and consumption of goods as well as services at the national level.

What is the issue?
51% holding of the GSTN is with non-government financial institutions and 24.5% equity is with the government of India and remaining 24.5% is held by Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers.

The non-government financial institutions include ICICI and HDFC. These banks are not owned by the Indian government as the direct and indirect holdings in these banks are 67% and 73% respectively. As per the guidelines issued by the government in 2009, the indirect foreign investment in a company cannot exceed 50% of its paid-up capital.
Subramanian Swamy has demanded to replace these non-government financial institutions with Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India.

What Subramanian Swamy has to say?
Subramanian Swamy has a concern over the point that how can a private entity be allowed to access “sensitive” information without security clearances. The private institutions should be replaced with RBI and SBI and if the demands are not met by October 31, he will move the petition to Supreme Court.

What Arun Jaitley has to say?
The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has not agreed to the suggestion made by Subramanian Swamy and has said that he will resort to (Former Finance Minister) Chidambaram’s ways.
He wants the entity to head the way it is.