Story perspectives

GST Council raises prosecution threshold to Rs 5 crore

By Drooid · Oct 7, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Story summary

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the 57th GST Council meeting on October 8 in New Delhi.
Council will need a court order before any GST arrest, removing Section 69 authority.
It will raise the criminal prosecution threshold from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore.
Refunds aim for 17-day processing and automatic release of 90 % of eligible claims.
Small e-commerce sellers may register using a platform’s warehouse as a place of business, avoiding repeated state verifications.

History

Historical Context

India’s push for a unified indirect tax began with V. P. Singh’s MODVAT in 1986, gained momentum under Vajpayee’s 1999 GST proposal and Chidambaram’s 2006 rollout plan, and culminated in the Constitution (101st Amendment) that launched GST on 1 July 2017 with projected INR12 trillion revenue. In September 2024, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s GST Council raised the criminal prosecution threshold from INR1 crore to INR5 crore, tightening enforcement of system Modi and Jaitley created.

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Story summary

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the 57th GST Council meeting on October 8 in New Delhi.
Council will need a court order before any GST arrest, removing Section 69 authority.
It will raise the criminal prosecution threshold from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore.
Refunds aim for 17-day processing and automatic release of 90 % of eligible claims.
Small e-commerce sellers may register using a platform’s warehouse as a place of business, avoiding repeated state verifications.

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