.Patiala, March 2: RGNUL Financial and Mercantile Law Review organized the Colloquium on Goods and Services Tax Law on 29th February 2020, in collaboration with Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan Attorneys and Knowledge partners, SCC Online and EBC at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab. The Colloquium educated students, scholars, academicians and professionals about the new Goods and Services Tax and indirect tax regime in India and the challenges for the taxpayers. It initiated a discourse on the legal scrutiny of the issues in implementation and compliance of GST laws and to find solutions to all pertinent problems. The Colloquium was started with an opening ceremony where the Chief Guest, Mr. Mathivanan N., Principal Partner, Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan Attorneys, along with the Guests of Honour, Mr. Narendra Singhvi, Joint Partner, Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan Attorneys (RGNUL Batch of 2012) and Mr. Shubham Vijay, Senior Associate, Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan Attorneys (RGNUL Batch of 2016) were felicitated with Mementos and tokens of Gratitude. The Welcome Address was delivered by Dr. Manoj Sharma, Assistant Professor of Law, who welcomed the honoured guests and explained the purpose of the conference. The Chief Guest, Mr. Mathivanan, then delivered a speech, about the purpose of the conference and Mr. Vijay, an alumnus of the university, delivered a speech about the common platform for discussion initiated between the two institutions. The vote of thanks was proposed by Shivansh Mehta and Sanskriti Sharma, Managing Editors, RGNUL Financial and Mercantile Law Review.
The first Guest Lecture , on the theme of GST: Introduction, Impact, Challenges and the way forward was delivered by Mr. Mathivanan N., followed by a Joint Lecture on the theme of Supply: Concept, Nature and Related Aspects was delivered by Mr. Narendra Singhvi and Mr. Shubham Vijay.
This was followed the Technical Session where Papers were presented to the Resource Persons. Papers were on the exhaustive themes of Two Years of Goods & Services Tax: Impacts and Challenges, Constitutional Challenges to Goods & Services Tax, National Anti-Profiteering Authority: Impacts and Challenges and Consideration for a Supply and selected papers will be published in a special edition of RGNUL Financial and Mercantile Law Review.
The Colloquium was closed out by a closing ceremony, where the Chief Guest felicitated the best research papers. The Best Paper prize was won by Ashutosh Choudhary and Anuj Jain from National Law University, Odisha for their Paper “Volume v/s Value: Modalities to Pass the Tax Rate Reduction Benefits under Anti Profiteering Provisions” followed by Dhanshree Sharma of Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab for her paper “A second bite at the anti-profiteering apple, under GST” and Rohit Maheshwary & Shruti Lakhotia for their paper” Consumer Is The King: Critical Analysis Of National Anti- Profiteering Authority”. All Prize winners received Books courtesy of EBC and Internships at Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan Attorneys. The Best Prize winners also received a Cash Prize of Rs. 5000. The Colloquium presented a truly intellectual opportunity for the participants and judges alike.
By: Karni Pratap
