• Notification Date: 28-11-2022
• Notification No: N/A

CCI has to resolve GST Profiteering Complaints

Recently, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has notified the withdrawal of the national anti-profiteering authority (NAA). The board notified that the related complaints would be handled by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) from 1st December 2022. On Wednesday, the CBIC has amended the Central Goods and Services Tax (Fourth Amendment) Rules, 2022 in its notice. The CBIC has omitted several rules relating to the constitution of the NAA in the notification. 

In the new notification issued by the CBIC, it has been stated that in the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017, — (a) rule 122 shall be omitted. It is also mentioned that (b) rules 124 and 125 shall be omitted; (c) in rule 127, - (i) in the marginal heading, for the word “Duties”, the word “Functions”, shall be substituted; (ii) for the words “It shall be the duty of the Authority, -”, the words “The authority shall discharge the following functions, namely: –” shall be substituted. Some other amendments are - (d) rule 134 shall be omitted; (e) rule 137 shall be omitted; (f) after rule 137, in the Explanation, for clause (a), the following clause shall be substituted, namely: – ‘(a) “Authority” means the Authority notified under sub-section (2) of section 171 of the Act. 

CBIC notified in another notice that the Central Government, on the recommendations of the Goods and Services Tax Council, hereby empowers the Competition Commission of India established under sub-section (1) of section 7 of the Competition Act, 2002 (12 of 2003), to examine whether input tax credits availed by any registered person or the reduction in the tax rate have actually resulted in a commensurate reduction in the price of the goods or services or both supplied by him. This has been done in exercising the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 171 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (12 of 2017), This notification will be effective from the 1st day of December 2022. 

This new notification has been constituted by the Central Government for better analysis of whether input tax credits availed by any registered person or the reduction in the tax is passed onto the consumer properly. It will also help to protect the consumer from the random price increase for self-interests in the name of GST.