GST e-way bills issue: Madras HC issues notice to Centre, Tamil Nadu dept

Madurai: The Madras High Court on Monday ordered issue of notice to the Centre, including Principal Secretary (Revenue) and Tamil Nadu Commissioner of Commercial Taxes on a PIL seeking to direct traders to use E-way billing for movement or selling of goods in order to prevent cheating.

Justices K K Sasidharan and G R Swaminathan ordered notice after hearing the PIL by K K Ramesh, who also sought to generate a common portal for sale, supply or transport of all the goods above Rs 5,000.

In order to help traders and common man, in case sale was cancelled, E-way bill also can be generated and cancelled through SMS, he submitted. It would not be possible for the traders to cheat the common man, with regard to the rate of tax (as different slabs- five per cent to 28 per cent are fixed) if online bill was generated, he submitted.

The E-way bill will generate a unique ID number for each goods, above Rs 5000 and the tax would have to be paid at any cost automatically online. He said in hotels and other places common people were cheated regarding the rate of GST and there was no official to monitor the implementation of the GST or tax evasion.

Hence the government should form flying squads to find out if GST was collected and paid properly to the Government, the petitioner submitted. The traders should be compulsorily asked to use online billing facility to prevent irregularities, he submitted.