Which of the following Constitution Amendment Acts introduced GST (Goods and Services Tax) in course of inter-state trade or commerce?

Correct — A, Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act. This is the amendment that built GST into the Constitution. It received Presidential assent on 8 September 2016 and its Seventh Schedule changes took effect from 16 September 2016. Three inserted articles carry the scheme. Article 246A gives Parliament and every State legislature the power to make laws on goods and services tax, and then adds that where the supply takes place in the course of inter-State trade or commerce, Parliament alone has that power. Article 269A puts the money side of the same rule in place: GST on an inter-State supply is levied and collected by the Government of India and the proceeds are apportioned between the Union and the States, and an import is treated as an inter-State supply. Article 279A creates the GST Council under the chairmanship of the Union Finance Minister. Article 366(12A) supplies the definition of the tax itself. So the inter-State element named in the stem is not incidental — it is one of the specific things the 101st Amendment had to settle, because a tax on a supply crossing a State boundary could not be left to either government alone.

• (b)Constitution (One Hundred and Second Amendment) Act — The 2018 amendment that gave constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes, inserting Article 338B along with Article 342A and the definition in Article 366(26C). Nothing to do with taxation.
• (c)Constitution (One Hundred and Fourth Amendment) Act — It extended the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha and the State legislative assemblies to 2030, and at the same time discontinued the nomination of Anglo-Indian members.
• (d)Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act — The 2023 amendment reserving one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha, the State legislative assemblies and the Delhi assembly for women, to operate after a census and a delimitation exercise.

Before 2016 the Constitution divided indirect taxation cleanly: the Union taxed manufacture and services, the States taxed sale within their territory. A single tax running across the whole chain of supply therefore could not simply be legislated — the Seventh Schedule itself had to be rewritten. The 101st Amendment did that. It substituted Union List entry 84 so that central excise survives only on petroleum crude, high speed diesel, motor spirit, natural gas, aviation turbine fuel and tobacco; it omitted entries 92 and 92C; and on the State side it rewrote entry 54 and omitted entries 52 and 55. In their place came the concurrent taxing power of Article 246A and the GST Council of Article 279A.

Two things make this item slip. The first is that the amendment BILL and the amendment ACT carry different numbers — the measure was introduced as the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-second Amendment) Bill, 2014, after an earlier attempt as the 115th Amendment Bill of 2011, and it became the 101st Amendment Act when enacted. CDS has tested that gap directly before. The second is that the amendments numbered around it are all well known for other reasons, so a candidate who remembers 'a recent amendment' without the number can be pulled to any of them. Fix the run in order — 101 GST, 102 backward classes commission, 103 economically weaker sections, 104 reserved legislative seats, 105 State power over backward classes, 106 women's reservation — and the whole family becomes answerable.

• The Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016 received assent on 8 September 2016; its Seventh Schedule changes took effect from 16 September 2016.
• Article 246A gives concurrent power to tax GST, with Parliament alone competent where supply is in the course of inter-State trade or commerce.
• Article 269A provides that inter-State GST is levied and collected by the Government of India and apportioned between the Union and the States; imports count as inter-State supply.
• Article 279A creates the GST Council, chaired by the Union Finance Minister, and Article 366(12A) defines the tax.
• It was introduced as the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-second Amendment) Bill, 2014 — the bill number and the act number are different, and questions exploit that.

• Answering with 122 because that was the bill number; the enacted measure is the 101st Amendment Act.
• Assuming basic customs duty was subsumed into GST. It was not — only the additional duties of customs went in.
• Confusing the 102nd and 105th Amendments, both of which concern backward classes but pull in opposite directions on who identifies them.

Either as an amendment-number recall item like this one, or through the article that carries a particular GST function, or as a statement set on what GST does and does not cover.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Article of the Constitution of India provides for the Goods and Services Tax Council?

  • (a)Article 246A
  • (b)Article 269A
  • (c)Article 279A
  • (d)Article 280

  Answer(c) Article 279A — inserted by the 101st Amendment, it creates the GST Council chaired by the Union Finance Minister. Article 280 is the Finance Commission.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Constitution as amended in 2016, tax on a supply of goods in the course of inter-State trade or commerce is levied and collected by

  • (a)the State of origin
  • (b)the State of destination
  • (c)the Government of India, and apportioned between the Union and the States
  • (d)the GST Council

  Answer(c) the Government of India, and apportioned between the Union and the States — this is what Article 269A provides.