Cross-empowerment in GST: unified orders with appeals confined to the same Act subject to prescribed pre-deposit and timelines.
Cross-empowerment permits a single proper officer to issue concurrent CGST and SGST/UTGST orders for the same supply, with appeals, reviews, revisions or rectifications confined to the hierarchy under the same Act. The First Appellate Authority is the Commissioner (Appeals) or equivalent; appeals must follow prescribed forms and timelines, require a specified pre-deposit (admitted liability plus a percentage, higher where certain penalties apply), allow up to three adjournments, forbid remand to the adjudicating authority, and are usually to be decided within one year. (AI Summary)

Suspension of certificate under FCRA restricts receipt of foreign funds pending cancellation proceedings; reasons must be recorded.
Suspension under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 permits the Central Government, for reasons recorded in writing, to keep a registration certificate in abeyance pending consideration of cancellation under Section 14; during suspension the holder may not receive foreign contribution and may utilize funds in custody only with prior governmental permission. The power is discretionary, must be exercised on recorded reasons, subject to limited judicial review, and may be justified by failures to comply with annual return disclosures, account intimations, improper refunds, or adverse audit findings. (AI Summary)

Adjudication under GST clarifies show cause notice procedure, deposit options and differential penalty treatment in tax proceedings.
Adjudication under GST is the departmental process to determine tax liability through issuance and disposal of show cause notices, ensuring the principle of natural justice by allowing the assessee to reply and produce evidence. The framework separates non-fraud and fraud-related defaults, prescribing differing deposit requirements, limitation periods, and penalty outcomes; deposits before initiation and timely payments affect the officer's duty to issue notices and the extent of penalty exposure. (AI Summary)

E invoicing threshold reduction expands compulsory e invoice coverage to mid sized taxpayers and affects B2B and export invoicing.
The turnover threshold for compulsory e invoice issuance has been reduced to twenty crore rupees in any preceding financial year, extending mandatory e invoicing to mid sized taxpayers effective from 1st April 2022. The requirement covers B2B supplies and exports; invoices issued without e invoicing by covered taxpayers are treated as invalid and subject to penalties. E invoice data will auto fill GSTR 1. Specified exclusions include non banking financial companies, transport agencies, SEZ business units and government departments. A trial of e invoice generation via the official portal or software is recommended before the effective date. (AI Summary)

Writ jurisdiction limits: no writ for specific performance; delay and rejected representations do not restart limitation period.
The article explains that writ jurisdiction is generally not available to obtain specific performance of contracts against a public development authority; representations do not extend or restart the limitation period and a writ petitioner guilty of delay or laches should be dismissed at the threshold rather than being relegated to seek administrative representation or later rely on its rejection as a fresh cause of action. (AI Summary)

Beneficial ownership transparency requires legal persons to disclose ultimate owners and enable timely, need based international cooperation.
Amendments to Recommendation 24 require jurisdictions to ensure adequate, accurate and up to date information on beneficial ownership of legal persons, obliging registered entities to collect and make that information available to competent authorities and to establish registries or equivalent mechanisms; the changes also strengthen controls on bearer shares and nominee arrangements and mandate need based international sharing of beneficial ownership information under anti money laundering cooperation. (AI Summary)

Proper officer designation under GST law must be assigned by the Commissioner; delegation and cross empowerment govern jurisdiction.
The proper officer under GST is the Commissioner or a central tax officer assigned a specific function by the Commissioner; assignments may be made by administrative order, board notification, or statutory notification where required. Delegation and sub delegation determine which officers may exercise adjudicatory or investigative powers, and cross empowerment enables State or UT officers to enforce CGST/IGST provisions when empowered. Judicial decisions recognise that properly assigned functions confer status as proper officer, while distinguishing formality requirements for central versus state officer appointments. (AI Summary)

E-invoice mandate requires IRN generation, standardised reporting and automatic GST returns auto-population.
Rule 48 mandates generation of e-invoices in the prescribed INV-01 schema by notified classes of registered persons through the IRP to obtain a unique Invoice Reference Number (IRN); e-invoices (covering invoices, credit and debit notes) are required for B2B and export supplies, transmitted to the GST system for auto-population of GSTR-1 based on invoice date, subject to specified exemptions, cancellation rules and statutory penalties for noncompliance. (AI Summary)

Mere representation does not extend limitation - courts should dismiss belated petitions rather than revive them by ordering representations.
Mere representations to administrative authorities do not toll or extend limitation and do not create a fresh cause of action; courts should dismiss belated writs barred by delay and laches rather than revive them by directing or treating late representations as restarting limitation, though a written, signed acknowledgment of liability will compute a fresh period of limitation and statutory exclusions and condonation provisions affect computation where applicable. (AI Summary)

Reassessment procedural safeguards require full disclosure of approval documents and mandated personal hearing notice before reopening.
Reassessment reopenings must furnish the actual standard approval request with the superior officer's comments and particulars; enclose any documents or reports referenced in the reasons (redacting only unrelated portions); dispose of objections by dealing with each objection and giving reasons; grant a personal hearing with at least seven working days' notice; and supply citations of any precedents relied upon with the hearing notice so the assessee can respond. (AI Summary)

Consumer forum jurisdiction affirmed where statutory arbitration does not bar complaints against private telecom service providers.
The Consumer Protection Act covers services and deficiencies by telecom providers, and Section 3 preserves its remedies as additional to other statutes. The existence of a statutory arbitration remedy under Section 7B of the Telegraph Act does not, absent express words or necessary implication, oust the jurisdiction of consumer fora; therefore complaints alleging deficiency of service by private telecom companies fall within District Consumer Forum jurisdiction. (AI Summary)

E filing accessibility: allow defective appeals and accept legacy acknowledgements so filing is not blocked by portal validations.
Users cannot complete Form 35 because portal navigation misclassifies forms and validation rules require mandatory attachments or data (demand notice, landline, computerized ROI acknowledgement) that may be unavailable or in legacy handwritten formats. Legacy acknowledgement numbers and orders received only by email are rejected by format validation, preventing filing. The author proposes permitting saving and submission despite defects, accepting manual acknowledgement numbers, allowing later upload of documents, and introducing a defective filing mechanism to enable rectification after initial acceptance. (AI Summary)

90-day timeline for going-concern sale treated as directory, allowing liquidators flexibility to pursue alternative disposal methods.
Regulation 32A enables sale of a corporate debtor as a going concern where the Committee of Creditors recommends it or the liquidator considers it value-maximising; the Committee or the liquidator with the Stakeholders Consultation Committee must identify assets and liabilities to be sold. If sale as a going concern cannot be effected within the prescribed period, the liquidator may instead sell assets as standalone, slump sale, collective sets, or in parcels; the regulation permits reserve-price reductions within regulatory limits. An adjudicating authority construed the timeline as directory where the liquidation pre-dated the amendment and noted the absence of specified consequences for non-compliance. (AI Summary)

Mandatory e-invoicing threshold reduced, firms must comply with expanded reporting and GST portal registration requirements.
Operative compliance changes require mandatory e invoicing from taxpayers above the newly lowered turnover threshold effective April, availability of a portal option to furnish a Letter of Undertaking for the coming fiscal year with specified witness details, and mandatory inclusion of map location for new registrations and address amendments; GSTN has also implemented GSTR 1/IFF interface enhancements and CBIC/GSTN issued clarifications on incorrect GSTR 1 reporting and input tax credit claims. (AI Summary)

Retrospective exemption on liquor licence fees allows refund of earlier service tax payments while limiting later refundability.
Grant of alcoholic liquor licences for licence or application fees was treated as taxable service and subject to reverse charge; a retrospective non-levy and notification implemented GST Council recommendations creating refund entitlement for service tax paid when claims are filed within the statutory window. Tribunal reasoning indicates unjust enrichment cannot be presumed absent evidence that the payer passed the tax burden to customers, and auditor certification showing the payment as business expenditure is relevant. Proposed retrospective amendments extend non-levy effect but limit refundability for taxes collected in an intervening period. (AI Summary)

Mandatory landline phone numbers in official forms create barriers; forms should accept filings using mobile based identity linkage only.
Mandatory entry of a landline phone number in statutory e forms imposes an unnecessary contact requirement because mobile numbers enable messaging, calls and OTP verification and are already linked to identity databases. Landlines are fixed, declining in prevalence, and do not support essential electronic authentication; requiring them forces applicants to use another person's number or obsolete numbers, creating barriers to filing. Forms and systems that validate or mandate landline data should allow completion without a landline and rely on mobile based identity linkage for authentication and contact. (AI Summary)

First charge priority: secured creditors' charges prevail over conflicting central excise claims under SARFAESI constraints.
The Commissioner invoked confiscation powers under a provision of the Central Excise Rules that had been omitted before the dates of confiscation, so those powers could not be validly exercised; after insertion of a statutory first charge in the Central Excise statute the charge remains subject to the SARFAESI regime, and where conflict arises the secured creditor's priority may prevail over central excise dues, requiring fact-specific analysis of competing statutory schemes. (AI Summary)

Duty to consider objections: assessing officer must address each objection, supply relied documents and grant personal hearing.
Assessing Officer must meaningfully address each submission in objections to a reopening notice, provide reasoned conclusions, and supply copies of documents relied upon when requested; reopening is a quasi judicial function requiring a personal hearing with adequate notice, disclosure of relied judgments or reports with the hearing notice, and production or redaction of referenced documents to permit effective response. (AI Summary)

Illegal inducement payments to professionals disallowable as business deductions; donor liability recognized and tax benefit denied.
Expenses by pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies characterized as gifts, freebies or inducements to medical practitioners that are illegal or prohibited by professional ethics are not deductible. The donor's participation in transactions contrary to statutory or regulatory norms precludes the donor from claiming such payments as business deductions, grounded in the principle that civil relief will not be founded on wrongdoing and in the need for coherence between tax treatment and professional regulation. (AI Summary)

No GST on grant of liquor licences; retrospective non supply declaration bars refunds of tax already collected.
Grant of alcoholic liquor licences by State Governments against licence or application fees is declared neither a supply of goods nor a supply of services; notifications to that effect have been given retrospective effect to 1 July 2017 across CGST, IGST and UTGST, and the Finance Bill provisions provide that taxes already collected in the retrospective period shall not be refunded while removing such licence fees from GST liability. (AI Summary)