Supreme Court to hear plea challenging GST on wheelchairs, disability-related aids

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea challenging the imposition of GST on wheelchair and disability-related aids.

The Supreme court on Friday said it will hear the plea challenging the imposition of Goods and Service Tax (GST) on disability medical devices and equipment.

The plea was mentioned before Justice DY Chandrachud led bench, which said, "Our only issue is that this lies in the policy domain. Then we have to hold that no GST on any medical devices. But we will certainly hear this out."

The court assured the petitioner that the case would be listed for hearing at the earliest.

The petitioner submitted that a normal person needs to pay tax for walking; however, a disabled person needs to pay a 5% tax for walking. The petitioner said, "My movement is taxable. This is very urgent since, even on wheelchairs, GST is applied. Even on brail paper the tax is imposed which is not correct."

He also argued that the imposition of tax resulted in denial of equal opportunities for persons with disabilities and created barriers for them to access the resources available to other people.

According to the plea, GST on mobility aids was also a violation of the guarantee of equal opportunities made by the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016.