GSTN glitches: After demanding CBI inquiry CAIT threatens to move court against Infosys

Last week, the GST Council made a number of recommendations to ease the filing norms, but the traders’ body is not convinced yet. After demanding the CBI inquiry against IT giant Infosys for teething problems on the GST  Network (GSTN), the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has threatened to move court if “no action is taken against the company”, while Infosys and the government are passing the buck on to each other.

The traders’ body said that it has failed to understand why no action is being taken against Infosys and other companies who have taken the contract of GST portal at a huge cost of about Rs 1,400 crore, PTI reported. The traders’ body also alleged that Infosys came up with a “lame excuse” and declining that there was something wrong with the GSTN.

“…if no immediate action is taken against Infosys, it will have no other alternative left but to take shelter of the Court of Law to intervene in the matter and while identifying the culprits award them suitable punishment for non-performance and wastage of public money. No one will be allowed to run away with public money,” CAIT said.

How did the blame game begin?

Earlier this month, CAIT demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), criticising the failure of Infosys in running smoothly. The traders’ body, then, in a statement said, “Even after four months of GST implementation in the country, the GST Portal which was supposed to function properly from 1st July itself is still working like an experiment project causing much harassment and mental concern to traders across Country.”

“The CAIT has also demanded the government to release a white paper on as on date status of GST portal. The poor functioning of the portal has brought bad name for a good taxation system like GST and utter frustration to the traders who are mostly unable to make GST compliance on account of malfunctioning of the portal,” the statement added.

However, Infosys vehemently denied allegations made by the CAIT as “completely inaccurate” and passed the ball in government’s court. The IT company blamed government’s rapidly changing policies for the glitches. “Given the complex nature of the project and rapid change management, there have been several stakeholder concerns that have also been raised. Some of our finest engineers are supporting the GSTN team as they work towards resolving these and serving all stakeholders,” the company said.

The story does not end here. The Economic Times reported on November 1 that senior government officials are not happy with the time taken by the company to come with a solution, due to which the government had to extend deadlines for filing returns. Infosys rejected the contention too and said that the company was working hard to fix the issues.

In 2015, Infosys was given a Rs 1,380-crore deal for developing and running GSTN. On October 30, the government extended the last date for filing GSTR-2 and GSTR-3 for the month of July to November 30 and December 11. A week before that the government had waived penalty on the delayed filing of initial GST returns for the months of August and September. As per the data with the GSTN, a huge chunk of businesses file their returns after the expiry of the due date.