Tag: Rajeev Gowda

GST Council Meeting: Stage Set for Stormy Meeting Between States and Centre Over Compensation Payment

‘Refusal to compensate the states is nothing short of a betrayal by the Modi government and a betrayal of trust of the people of India,’ said Sonia Gandhi at a meeting with seven chief ministers on Wednesday.

New Delhi: Several state governments ruled by the Congress Party and other Opposition leaders set the stage for a stormy meeting of the GST (Goods and Services Tax) council, which is set to meet on Thursday.

At stake is what are called GST ‘dues’ — essentially compensation by the Centre for any losses that arise due to the transition to the new tax regime. When the GST regime became operational on July 1, 2017, the law guaranteed compensation for loss of revenue (i.e if the states’ revenue deficit fell below 14% annually) to the states for the first five years.

While delayed GST compensation payments have been a source of concern for many months now, what has set the stage for a clash over the last month is finance sectary Ajay Bhushan Pandey’s alleged testimony to the parliamentary standing committee on finance. Pandey reportedly told the panel that the Narendra Modi government is no position to pay the GST share of states as per the current revenue sharing formula.

According to a report in The Hindu, which quoted two unnamed members who attended the parliamentary panel meeting meeting,  Pandey’s comments were in response to a question on the revenue shortfall due to the pandemic. The members then questioned him on how the government could renege on the commitment to the States.  At this, “he [Mr. Pandey] pointed out that the GST Act has provisions to rework the formula for paying compensation to the State governments if the revenue collection drops below a certain threshold,” the media report said, quoting one unnamed member.

Over the last two days, the Opposition has lashed out in the run-up to the meeting, afraid that that state governments are losing an important source of revenue at a time when they need it the most. Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday said any “refusal” by the Centre to pay GST compensation to the states is nothing short of a betrayal of the trust of the people of India.

She was addressing a meeting of seven chief ministers of states ruled by non-NDA parties, which was convened by her ahead of the crucial GST Council meeting on Thursday and the Monsoon session of Parliament that is likely to start from September 14.

The meeting was attended by the four Congress chief ministers Amarinder Singh (Punjab), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh), Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), and V. Narayanasamy (Puducherry), apart from Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) Hemant Soren (Jharkhand), Uddhav Thackeray (Maharashtra) and the four Congress chief ministers.

The seven chief ministers who attended the meeting with Sonia Gandhi. Photo: Screengrab via PTI

Gandhi said the issue of GST compensation being paid to states on time according to laws passed by Parliament is crucial but this is not happening.

She said dues have accumulated and the finances of all states have been affected badly, while the Central government continues to profiteer from “unilateral” cesses which are non-shareable with states and corner this revenue.

The Congress chief said the meeting was convened to help build a coordinated approach among like-minded parties on some important and pressing issues that impinge on the Centre-state relations.

“This refusal to compensate the states is nothing short of a betrayal by the Modi government and a betrayal of trust of the people of India,” she said at the meeting.

Gandhi noted that the GST was enacted as an example of “cooperative federalism” and the GST regime came into existence because the states agreed to forego their constitutional powers of taxation in the larger national interest and on the solemn promise of compulsory GST compensation for a period of five years.

Watch | ‘We Will Approach SC If Centre Denies GST Compensation’: Kerala’s FM

She also said that some announcements by the government like the National Education Policy should worry all of them.

“This is a setback for progressive, secular and scientific values and reveals insensitivity to what the states have been saying. Problems of students and examinations are being dealt with very uncaringly,” she said.

Gandhi observed that ordinances are being issued by the Centre without consulting states on agricultural marketing and this will destroy the MSP regime and adversely impact the PDS.

“There has been a nationwide outcry against the Draft EIA Notification 2020 which is deeply anti-democratic. Laws meant to protect the environment, livelihoods and public health are being weakened,” she said, noting that the auction of coal mines has also been objected to by some chief ministers.

Public sector assets created over decades are being sold off, the Congress leader said, adding that some state governments have expressed their strong opposition to this.

She also observed that six airports have already been given to private hands and the Railways which is the life-line of the country is also being privatised by the BJP-led central government.

Gandhi called for more such meetings of like-minded parties in the larger interest of the country and the public’s good.

She also urged West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to talk to some of her counterparts in the larger interest of the public.

Mamata Banerjee during the virtual meeting. Photo: Screengrab via PTI

On Tuesday, the Congress accused the Centre of committing a “sovereign default” by not paying GST compensation to states as mandated under the law.

Addressing a joint press conference, party leaders Rajeev Gowda, Manpreet Badal and Krishna Byre Gowda also demanded the states be compensated for the estimated Rs 6 lakh crore loss in revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ahead of the August 27 meeting of the GST Council, the Congress leaders demanded that states be paid on time the compensation of 14% as mandated by the GST Compensation Act.

“Anything less is a betrayal of the faith of India’s states,” they said in a joint statement.

Addressing a virtual press conference, Badal, who is Punjab’s finance minister, said the Centre owes Rs 44,000 crore in pending GST dues to the state which is hampering their governance.

He said the government telling the Parliamentary Committee on Finance that there is no obligation on its part to pay compensation to states amounts to “sovereign default”.

India is not a ‘Banana Republic’ to say that it is not mandatory, he stated.

“I think, there is a breach of Constitution as far as not being able to pay compensation (is concerned),” he said. The BJP government has no respect of the Constitution, the institutions and the people of India”.

Badal also informed he has written to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman urging her to activate a dispute resolution mechanism on GST-related issues.

It can’t be your word against my word. There must be, in case as a dispute or a conflict, a dispute resolution mechanism. The constitution of the GST council provides for that, he said.

Once this mechanism is activated, states would have the right to approach the Supreme Court and take a legal recourse in case any grievance, he said.

He also said as per the GST law, there should be a vice chairman of the Council which according to political propriety should be from an opposition state, because it is felt that the agenda for GST council meeting is created by the government and its bureaucracy.

Rajeev Gowda said the state are at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 and they should be compensated by the Centre. “It is shocking to know that instead of taking steps to help states, it is preparing grounds for betrayal. It is replacing cooperative federalism with coercive federalism,” Gowda claimed.

He said the Centre is about to execute another devastating U-turn as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised during the enactment of the GST that states would be compensated.

“Only on this basis, states gave up their constitutional powers of taxation and the GST regime was born. Starving states of funds has been the official policy of this government,” he alleged.

The Congress leader said any borrowing that needs to be done to help tide over the COVID-19 crisis must be done by the Central government.

It can raise resources at lower cost and can bear the debt burden better than states, Gowda said.

He also sought a reduction on the reliance on cesses and share the revenues fairly. “It is high time that the centre-state fund sharing formula from finance commissions becomes a reality.”

Former Karnataka finance minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the absence of help from the Centre is creating havoc in governance and delivery of essential services.

He said the Centre owes Rs 13,000 crore to Karnataka.

(With PTI inputs)

Imposition of Section 144 in Bengaluru on December 18 Was Illegal: Karnataka HC

The prohibitory order was used to stop protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in the city.

New Delhi: In the first recent decision of its kind, the Karnataka high court has ruled that the imposition of Section 144 in Bengaluru on December 18, meant to block anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests, was illegal. The prohibitory order “does not stand the test of judicial scrutiny laid down by the apex court”, Bar and Bench quoted the judges as saying.

On December 18, 2019, multiple protests had been organised against the CAA and National Register of Citizens in Karnataka, similar to other parts of the country. The Bengaluru police commissioner, however, banned public assembly in the city that day, using Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The high court began hearing challenges to this decision on December 20. Multiple petitions were filed against the notification over the course of the hearing, including by Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Gowda and Karnataka MLA Sowmya Reddy. The petitions wanted the state government’s order quashed.

According to LiveLaw, the high court referred to Supreme Court judgments in the Anuradha Bhasin case and In Re Ramlila Maidan to justify its conclusions. The bench was headed by Chief Justice Abhay S. Oka and comprised Justice Hemant Chandangoudar. The bench had originally comprised Chief Justice Oka and Justice Pradeep Singh Yerur when the matter came up for the first time. The judges had earlier said, according to the website:

“We are not concerned with the subject of the protests, our concern is about decision making process which undoubtedly curtails the fundamental rights. It is indeed a preventive measure. The preventive measure has effect of curtailing fundamental rights of citizens. Prima facie, the formation of opinion is not reflected in the order. Therefore these petitions be taken up for hearing at preliminary stage. Issue whether permission granted can be revoked by passing order under section 144 and that also without giving pre-post decision hearing will have to be gone into.”

The court reportedly asked the advocate general, who was representing the state, several questions about this decision, including why permission to protest was granted and then taken away overnight and whether the state could assume that all protests are a threat to public peace.

Also read: Removing Section 144 Will Lead to ‘Chaos’, Free Speech ‘Not Absolute’: Ahmedabad Police

Police all over the country have been accused of misusing Section 144 at their own convenience. The Supreme Court too has noted this, and said in 2011, “Refusal and/or withdrawal of permission [for a public gathering/protest] should be for valid and exceptional reasons. The executive power, to cause a restriction on a constitutional right within the scope of Section 144 Cr.P.C., has to be used sparingly and very cautiously.”

Lawyer Sarim Naved wrote in The Wire about how the police have misused the section to justify violence:

“This is the real danger posed by Section 144. You have a body, namely the police, which is not trained or known for its restraint in the face of the disadvantaged. The consequences of the violation of Section 144 have to be legal, including prosecution for wilfully disobeying a public servant and for any other offences which may be committed.

“The imposition of an order under Section 144 does not grant authority to the police to become violent. The police can use violence to disperse an ‘unlawful assembly’ only if the situation warrants so. Otherwise, the procedure has to be the same as committing any offence under the IPC. File an FIR and prosecute.”

Opposition Parties Unite to Oppose Amendments to RTI Act

In agreement that the Modi government wants to control salaries and tenures of information commissioners through these changes, at least six parties declared their intent to oppose the amendments when they are moved.

New Delhi: Leaders of a large number of opposition parties today came together to denounce the proposed amendments to the RTI Act that have been moved by the Narendra Modi government and to demand the immediate operationalisation of anti-corruption laws.

Speaking at a people’s convention or ‘jan manch’ organised by the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, senior leaders of the Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress declared that they would oppose any amendments to the RTI Act, 2005.

At the Jan Manch, a resolution was also passed to demand that the RTI Act not be diluted through amendments which seek to place in the hands of the Centre the powers of determining the tenure and salaries of all the information commissioners, including the chiefs, in both the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commissions. The resolution had also demanded immediate operationalisation of the Whistleblowers Protection Act and the Lokpal law, introduction of the Grievance Redressal Bill and opposed the lack of transparency in electoral funding due to introduction of electoral bonds.

Speaking at the meet, Rajeev Gowda of the Congress said his party would oppose any amendment to the RTI Act. He also accused the BJP government at the Centre of destroying every institution and legislation of transparency and accountability. Gowda said the Congress would also support the demand for implementation and passage of the other anti-corruption laws.

General secretary of CPI(M) Sitaram Yechury said the RTI Act came about after a long and hard struggle of the people. He said his party would support the demand to not dilute the RTI Act and assured that it would work both within and outside parliament to ensure that the RTI Act was not amended.

Another Communist leader, D. Raja of the CPI said his party was very clear in its position and would not allow any dilution of the RTI Act. His colleague and party national secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan said the BJP government wanted to weaken the RTI Act as it is a tool in the hands of the ordinary citizens for fighting corruption. “Who are the people who are opposed to this RTI Act? They are those who are involved in the loot of public money,” he said.

Anjaan said any tinkering with the RTI Act would be worse than rape as it would directly impact those who are poor and socially marginalised. He also charged that the Modi government has not got a Lokpal appointed in its four year rule thus far. “Now,” he quipped, “they are talking about it when its term is about to come to an end and the elections are only a few months away.”

Manoj Kumar Jha of the RJD said the government was trying to destroy the RTI Act as they have no answers to people’s questions. Trinamool leader Dinesh Trivedi too said his party would oppose the amendments to the RTI Act.

Later, Aam Aadmi Party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said that his party would block all attempts to get the amendments to the RTI Act introduced in parliament. He said it was clear that by controlling the purse-strings of the information commissioner, the Modi government wanted to curb their independence and freedom of deliver orders fearlessly.

The leaders of all these opposition parties were in unison that the failure of the Modi government in enacting or implementing the anti-corruption laws showed its real intent and face.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who was part of the Lokpal movement, said the government was also trying to undermine the independence of the judiciary and that it was crucial that people campaign against all these attempts to dilute these important institutions.

Anjali Bhardwaj and Nikhil Dey of NCPRI declared that a follow up to today’s protests, which were also held in Gujarat and Rajasthan, similar demonstrations would be held all over the country to oppose the amendments to the RTI Act.

The gathering was also attended and addressed among others by former chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, Harsh Mander of Centre for Equity Studies and former major general Anil Verma of Association for Democratic Rights.

Kiren Rijiju Please Note, Deporting Rohingya Refugees Is Illegal Under International Law

India’s actions prove that what separates an illegal immigrant from a refugee is not a question of actual persecution but of political expediency.

India’s actions prove that what separates an illegal immigrant from a refugee is not a question of actual persecution but of political expediency.

People belonging to Rohingya Muslim community sit outside their makeshift houses on the outskirts of Jammu, May 5, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Mukesh Gupta

People belonging to Rohingya Muslim community sit outside their makeshift houses on the outskirts of Jammu, May 5, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Mukesh Gupta

A few months ago, I wrote about the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2016 and how it sought to provide preferential naturalisation options to persons from religious minorities in our neighbouring Muslim majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. This mirrored the Trump administration’s executive orders on immigration, which, in addition to imposing a ban on travel from several Muslim majority countries, also prioritised refugee claims on the basis of religious persecution, as long as the person claiming the refugee status was a religious minority in their home country. What both these policies did was to filter refugees and asylum seekers, and let only non-Muslim applicants through. This meant that groups facing extreme forms of violence and persecution in their home countries, such as Syrians and Rohingya Muslims, would not be let in.

On August 9, Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Gowda posed several questions to Union minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju. The questions pertained to the condition of Rohingya refugees in the country and were framed as follows:

(a) whether the (home) ministry has framed a policy with regard to Rohingya refugees in India;
(b) if so, whether it involves other stakeholders, such as our neighbouring countries;
(c) whether reports stating that government plans to deport the 40,000 Rohingya refugees are true; and
(d) if so, the reasons for such plans?

Rijiju’s response was to outline a plan to deport around 40,000 Rohingya, or “illegally staying foreign nationals”, from India. Carefully avoiding the word “refugee”, the minister said that the central government had directed the state governments to set up district task forces to “identify and deport” the foreign nationals. Rijiju further stated in a subsequent interview that since India is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Refugees, refugee status granted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the Rohingya was irrelevant to their deportation.

A subsequent question was posed the next day by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP R. Lakshmanan, about the condition of refugee camps in India for Bangladeshis and the Rohingya, and the basis on which the government was granting refugee status to them. Rijiju replied that there are no refugee camps established for either Bangladeshis or Rohingyas in India, and that there were only schemes of assistance for Tibetan and Sri Lankan refugees. The minister re-emphasised that India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, and referred to a Standard Operating Protocol dated December 29, 2011. According to a press release dated August 6, 2014, the protocol states that cases that are prima facie justified on the grounds of a well founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, sex, nationality, ethnic identity, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, can be recommended by the state government/Union territory administration to the Ministry of Home Affairs for grant of Long Term Visa (LTV) after due security verification.

The Rohingya, by any standard, are one of the most persecuted groups in South Asia. They are a “stateless” community, as Myanmar neither recognises the Rohingya as an ethnic minority, nor does it recognise them as citizens. The International State Crime Initiative released a report in 2015, describing the Myanmar government’s persecution of the Rohingya as “genocidal”. According to their estimates, 138,000 Rohingya were displaced by 2015, and the Myanmar government was, through a systematic campaign of stigmatisation, segregation, violence and massacres, leading up to mass annihilation of the Rohingya.

Children belonging to Rohingya Muslim community read the Koran at a madrasa, or a religious school, at a makeshift settlement, on the outskirts of Jammu, May 6, 2017. Credit: Mukesh Gupta

Children belonging to Rohingya Muslim community read the Koran at a madrasa, or a religious school, at a makeshift settlement, on the outskirts of Jammu, May 6, 2017. Credit: Mukesh Gupta

The forced deportation of the Rohingya is therefore a flagrant violation of the principle of non-refoulement, which is the cornerstone of the international refugee law and states that no person should be returned to a country where he/she faces persecution. It is true that India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and, therefore, not bound by it. However, the principle of non-refoulement is an established precept of international law, and the Supreme Court of India as well as various high courts have on multiple occasions applied the principle to stay the deportation of refugees. The spirit of the principle of non-refoulement underscores even the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, the assumption being that religious minorities in Muslim majority countries face persecution and therefore should not be forced to return to danger.

India, however, has been largely silent on the Rohingya crisis, which some observers attribute to its economic and geo-political ambitions in the region.  There is no evidence to suggest that there is any “radicalisation” among Rohingya refugees in India, which could lead to them being a “security threat” as suggested by the Ministry of Home Affairs. On the other hand, the Rohingya in India have not been able to escape persecution and have been the target of extreme local animosity. In fact, in April this year, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Jammu threatened a campaign to “identify and kill” Rohingya refugees in Jammu if they were not immediately deported.

As far as our neighbouring countries are concerned, Bangladesh has plans to relocate the Rohingya to a silt island named Thengar Char. The island surfaced only eight years ago, and floods are regular in the monsoon season. The Bangladesh government’s decision was widely criticised, but the government ordered it nonetheless.

What makes the Rohingya, despite the internationally documented persecution that they are trying to escape, so undeserving of refugee status? How is that the Indian government can claim to find UNHCR recognition for the Rohingya irrelevant, whereas it has been found relevant in multiple other cases? India’s actions are repeatedly proving that what separates an illegal immigrant from a refugee is less a question of actual persecution and more a question of political expediency. The Rohingya have been shuttled from pillar to post looking for refuge. However, even the possibility of imminent annihilation has not endeared them to the Indian government, which prefers to characterise them as potential Islamic fundamentalists. In this context, one has to see the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and the decision of the home ministry to deport the Rohingya refugees as being on a continuum of exclusionary immigration and refugee policies, driven by the same Islamophobia that drives Trump’s executive orders.

Darshana Mitra is a lawyer and researcher at the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore.