TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
25 Aug 2026 
As the 56th GST council meeting was held on 03/09/2025 and the GST Council itself violates Rule 6 under Chapter II on meetings of the council, I am prompted to write this article. The rule 6 of procedure and conduct of business regulations of the goods and service tax council which is effective from 01/07/2017 reads as "6. Frequency of meeting: The Council shall meet at least once in every quarter of the financial year". Be that as it may, as I woke up on 23/08/2026, I was wondering how Section 125 of the CGST Act is frequently used by always imposing the maximum penalty even on minor procedural lapses by the field formation for improving the GST Collections which is discussed subsequently.
This prompted me to do an analysis on the period during which rule 6 of the compliance of above procedure is required and also the period during which the regulations were violated. Let us analyse this aspect along with the quantum of violation. It is to be noticed that the procedure mandates for one meeting during every quarter of the financial year, the gap between any two successive meeting may go up to six months but within two quarters, there must be minimum 2 meetings. Under the above backdrop, let us now see the table on the history of meetings held with effect from 01/04/2017 onwards till 23/08/2026.
| Year | Meetings in Q1 | Meetings in Q2 | Meetings in Q3 | Meetings in Q4 | Total meetings held |
| 2017-18 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 13 |
| 2018-19 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 8 |
| 2019-20 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 2020-21 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 2021-22 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| 2022-23 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 2023-24 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 2024-25 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 2025-26 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2026-27 | 0 | ? | ? | ? | ? |
The analysis of above data reveals that out of 56 meetings held so far, 38 meetings have taken place since 01/07/2027, from which date the mandate of one meeting per quarter was made applicable as per above referred regulations. The present Finance Minister took charge in May 2019 and so far we did not have the required one meeting per quarter eleven times till 30/06/2026 as revealed from the above table. The requirements may only be recommendatory and not mandatory. But still when even for a small violations on e-way bill or any other procedural violations, how Section 125, 129 and 130 are imposed on the common taxpayer and should not the GST Council be an example in compliance of the required procedures?.
Looked from a different angle as well, the violations may be seen in the following manner.
| Year | Whether 1 meeting per quarter held | No of quarters with no meetings | No of meetings held |
| 2017-18 | Yes | 0 | 13 |
| 2018-19 | Yes | 0 | 8 |
| 2019-20 | Yes | 0 | 5 |
| 2020-21 | No | 2 | 3 |
| 2021-22 | No | 1 | 4 |
| 2022-23 | No | 1 | 3 |
| 2023-24 | No | 2 | 3 |
| 2024-25 | No | 1 | 3 |
| 2025-26 | No | 3 | 1 |
| 2026-27 | No | 1 | 0 |
Thus it is observed that the minor violations up to the year 2024-25 has become a major one during 2025-26. As there are major issues on GST such as revisit of threshold exemption, deletion of section 17(5)(d) as applicable to real estate sector which is a long standing demand, addressing the huge litigation, levy of maximum penalty of 25,000 under Section 125 of the CGST Act, 2017 even on minor procedural lapses which are purely curable in nature and does not involve in short payment or non-payment etc., it is appealed to the GST Council to consider the following suggestions for ease of doing business by the taxpayers.
- Kindly convene the 57th GST Council meeting during September 2026 so that from now onwards meetings are held in line with Procedure and conduct of business regulations of the goods and service tax council.
- As the limits for registration requirements were set during initial period, the GST Council may revisit the limits and revise it appropriately as the GST Council may deem fit.
- The real estate sector is having the issue of non-availability of ITC due to artificial restrictions contained in section 17(5)(d). This section 17(5) has successfully lived so far and it only increases the workload of field formations on denial of small amounts. In case section 17(5)(d) is deleted based on the recommendations of the council, the losses are minimum and gains are maximum.
- In case ITC is made available to developers / builders by deletion of section 17(5)(d), the accruing benefits shall bring down the prices of buildings which increases the volume of sales of residential as well as commercial building.
- For improving the overall economy of our country as well as to improve the GDP, investment in strong buildings both residential as well as commercial must go up and the builders/ developers require GST rationalization exclusively on that sector.
- As the GSTAT is in place and High Courts are suggesting alternate remedy by way of appeal, the field formations may be instructed to improve the quality of adjudication orders by way of taking uniform stand all over India on issues which are already settled to avoid the avoidable litigation.
- GST Council may meet once in every quarter as per the requirements/ regulations so as to address the emerging issues on GST then and there. Thus GST Council should become an example on compliance of the stipulated regulations.