CHILD HEALTH-New Fetish

Judicial Initiative Amaresh Bagchi writes:
THE recent Supreme Court judgment quashing the notifications of the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka which had provided for variation in the rate of sales tax on inter-state sales of cement under section 8(5) of the Central Sales Tax (CST) Act is to be welcomed as a long overdue initiative, towards a modicum of tax harmonisation in the country. Notifications of the type in question have been one of the devices increasingly used in the rat race among state governments (and also those of union territories) to attract trade and industry to their respective territories by undercutting their neighbours in the matter of sales tax rates, regardless of the impact on revenue or the implications for equity.