Mohit Minerals

Union of India v. Mohit Minerals Pvt. Ltd. (2022) 10 SCC 700 is a landmark judgment of a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India, delivered on 19 May 2022 by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud (with Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath). The case arose from a challenge to two 2017 Central notifications that levied Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) on the supply of ocean freight services in respect of goods imported into India on a Cost-Insurance-Freight (CIF) basis. The importer, Mohit Minerals, argued that the levy amounted to double taxation, since the importer already paid IGST on the composite value of imported goods (which included the freight component) under the customs valuation. The Gujarat High Court had struck down the notifications, and the Union appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Court upheld the Gujarat High Court and made two foundational rulings. First, on the substantive tax question, it held that the IGST levy on ocean freight in CIF imports was unconstitutional because it constituted double taxation of the same transaction and the Indian importer, who was neither the recipient nor the supplier of the shipping service, could not be made liable on a reverse charge basis. Second, and far more consequential for constitutional law, the Court ruled that recommendations of the GST Council under Article 279A of the Constitution are not binding on either the Union Parliament or the State Legislatures. The Court reasoned that Articles 246A and 279A confer simultaneous and concurrent taxing powers on the Centre and the States, that the Council's recommendations have only persuasive value, and that treating them as binding would disrupt fiscal federalism and the deliberative balance built into Article 279A.

The judgment is celebrated as a strong articulation of cooperative and fiscal federalism. Justice Chandrachud invoked the idea that Indian federalism is a dialogue in which States are not mere appendages of the Centre, characterizing the GST Council as a forum for collaborative, not unilateral, decision-making. The voting structure of the Council under Article 279A(9) — where the Centre holds one-third of votes and the States together hold two-thirds, with a three-fourths majority required — was read to reinforce that neither tier can dominate. As of 2026, the binding-versus-recommendatory debate remains live, with the Centre maintaining that in practice GST functions through near-consensus, while several States have cited Mohit Minerals to assert legislative autonomy in fiscal matters.

For UPSC and other civil-service examinations, Mohit Minerals is tested across General Studies Paper II (Polity and Governance) and Paper III (Economy). The typical question angles concern fiscal federalism, the constitutional status and powers of the GST Council (Article 279A), the meaning of Articles 246A and 269A, and the interplay between cooperative federalism and the binding nature of constitutional bodies' recommendations. Examiners frequently pair this case with the 101st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2016 (which introduced GST), and ask candidates to evaluate whether the GST Council's non-binding character strengthens or weakens India's federal structure. Mains answers benefit from citing the judgment by name and contrasting it with the "one nation, one tax" design rationale of GST.