Simultaneous Power to Legislate Goods and Services Tax (GST)
Official heading: “Special provision with respect to goods and services tax”
- Source edition
- The Constitution of India (as on 1 May 2026)
- Source locator
- Part XI, Article 246A, printed pages 147–148
- Last human source-link check
- Not yet checked
- Last human legal review
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1. In One Sentence
Confers concurrent, simultaneous legislative power on Parliament and State Legislatures to tax goods and services, reserving exclusive power to Parliament for inter-State supplies.
2. What It Means in Everyday Language
Inserted by the 101st Constitutional Amendment in 2016, Article 246A created a sui generis constitutional framework for the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
Unlike the traditional mutually exclusive list architecture of Article 246, Article 246A confers simultaneous and concurrent legislative power on both Parliament and every State Legislature to impose tax on goods and services.
Under clause (2), Parliament retains exclusive power to make laws regarding GST where the supply of goods, services, or both takes place in the course of inter-State trade or commerce.
In Union of India v. Mohit Minerals Pvt. Ltd. (2022), the Supreme Court ruled that Article 246A treats the Union and States as equal sovereign partners, and recommendations of the GST Council are persuasive rather than mechanically binding.
3. Practical Illustrative Example
A business sells restaurant services within Mumbai and supplies machinery from Maharashtra to Gujarat.
4. Important Limits, Qualifications & Exceptions
Article 246A creates a shared federal fiscal architecture outside the traditional Seventh Schedule lists.
- Simultaneous power: Both Union and States legislate simultaneously on intra-State supplies without traditional repugnancy overriding state power.
- Exclusive Union interstate power: Interstate supplies fall strictly under parliamentary legislative competence.
- Alcoholic liquor exclusion: Excludes alcoholic liquor for human consumption, preserving exclusive state excise jurisdiction.
5. Operative Constitutional Text
6. Sources & Historical Assembly Deliberations
Assembly quotations are withheld until wording, dates, and attribution have been checked against the primary record.
- •Government of India (Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice) • Part XI, Article 246A, printed pages 147–148 • Human source-link check pending
Primary PDF accessed and transcribed with AI assistance on 14 October 2026. Formatting and amendment annotation markers are omitted; operative wording is retained. This is not human legal review. Later amendments and commencement notifications have not been comprehensively checked.