Sikkim Court confirms Finance Act

The High Court of Sikkim confirmed the constitutionality of the amendments introduced in the Finance Act 2016.

India.- Sikkim’s High Court decided to upheld the decision to make constitutional the amendments presented to the Finance Act 2016. They established that the people involved in the organisation, marketing, selling or facilitation of the organisation in any kind liable to service tax.

The division is headed by the Chief of Justice Satish K Agnihotri, and it settled that the Union Parliament has the authority to impose and levy service tax on similar activities. The constitutionality of the amendments added to the Finance Act were challenged by people involved in the business of buying and selling lottery tickets by the Government of Sikkim. The original Finance Act is from 1994 and it suffered modifications in the Section 65B. “The invoices were raised by the State Government, which clearly made procurement of lottery tickets by the petitioners as outright complete sale,” said the judgement.

“When consideration is unascertainable for the services rendered by a distributor or selling agent, the service tax is not imposable and liable to be set aside,” said the court. “For the reasons and analysis made hereinabove, we allow the writ petitions partly and hold that the amendments carried out by the Finance Act, 2016, are not capable to being implemented for imposition and levy of the service tax on the services allegedly provided by the petitioners.”