Dr. Swamy speaks in Rajya Sabha on his opposition to GSTN in its current form

In a crisp 3 minute speech, Dr. Swamy lays out his opposition to GSTN and what needs to be done

1. GSTN is the most unpublicized construct for the GST. It is the cyber brain of the GST body.

2. GSTN is a private limited company registered in 2013 in which 51% of the authorized and fully subscribed capital is held by private entities.

3. GSTN is structured of eight shareholders, i.e., two governments: state and central, two banks [ICICI and HDFC], one private housing finance company [LICHF], and one wholly owned subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange.

4. Two banks, ICICI and HDFC together own 30% of the total equity. Recently RBI issued a document showing that these two banks are among the top 5 committing fraud. In 2010, the CBI arrested the CEO and seven others for loan fraud and bribery.

5. Foreign entities own more than 75% of these banks.

6. The Central and State Governments hold minority shares in GSTN but for its daily or important operations, GSTN is entirely financed from the public exchequer.

7. But yet GSTN is exempted from audit and scrutiny of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and also the Right To Information (RTI) is barred.

8. Its operations, findings and documents are however accessible to foreign interests through the foreign entities shareholders.

9. This violates Section 126 of the Draft Model GST Act, which states information gathered under the said Act by a public servant cannot be disclosed save for nine exceptions which for purposes of prosecution in a criminal court .

10. GSTN has so far avoided being checked for security clearance of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

11. A Select Committee of Rajya Sabha headed by Bhupendra Yadav went into the question of private participation in GSTN and unanimously resolved that GSTN should be purged of all private banks and financial institutions.

12. This House in the national interest should defer hearing GST Bills till the GSTN security and insider trading by private parties is resolved as per recommendation of the Select Committee.