Council thinks it's not the right time to bring petrol, diesel under GST: Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Friday that the GST Council has decided against including petrol and diesel under the GST structure. "The GST Council felt it was not time to bring petrol and diesel under GST," said Sitharaman at a press briefing after the 45th GST Council meeting in Lucknow.

The Finance Minister said the inclusion of petrol and diesel under GST was on the agenda of the GST Council only because of the Kerala High Court order. In June 2021, based on a writ petition, the Kerala High Court had asked the GST Council to decide on bringing petrol and diesel under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) ambit.

"This item came on the agenda for today's discussion purely because Kerala high court order as some person approached the high court and the court said that this can be taken up by the GST Council. On the direction of the court, it was brought up and the members spoke very clearly that they do not want this under GST," Nirmala Sitharaman said.

She added that the GST Council decision's on the matter will be reported to the Kerala High Court.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu opposed the idea of bringing fuels under the goods and services tax (GST) by saying the petrol and diesel remain one of the last vestiges of a State's right to manage its own revenue, according to state Finance Minister PT Palanivel Thiaga Rajan.

"We are of the general opinion that the state taxation of petrol and diesel remains one of the last vestiges of any State's right to manage their own revenues, since the advent of GST stripped away most of the small range of rights originally written to the Constitution," said Rajan.

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