Bills for ease of business, amend GST law tabled in Lok Sabha

A bill to simplify procedures for ease of doing business and amend a bill related to Goods and Services Tax were introduced in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley introduced The Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Amendment Bill, 2017, while Minister of State for Law P.P. Chaudhary introduced The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill, 2017, which seeks to amend the 1963 law to simplify procedures for ease of doing business.

A five-member expert committee had been set up by the government last year to review the Specific Relief Act and suggest changes to remove bottlenecks in execution of contract-based infrastructure development, public private partnerships and other public projects.

The bill seeks to provide for substituted performance of contracts, where a contract is broken, so that the party who suffers would be entitled to get the contract performed by a third party or by his own agency and recover expenses and costs, including compensation, from the party who failed to perform their part of the contract.