29 March 2017 must be recorded as one of the most significant days in the history of federalism in India. By passing the four bills relating to different aspects of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Lok Sabha has, perhaps for the first time put limitations on its own powers, in the interest of federalism, and signed off on a pooling of sovereignty in taxation matters with 32 state and Union territory legislatures.

In turn, over the next couple of months all the state legislatures will share their powers of taxation. In the process of sharing and jointly exercising the powers to tax, the GST Council will be born as India’s first truly federal institution.

Neither the Parliament on its own nor the state legislatures individually or jointly can override the collective recommendations of the GST Council. In other words, the GST regime has created an institutional and Constitutional framework for cooperative federalism in the arena of indirect taxation.