Issues: Whether the extended limitation period for recovery of customs duty could be invoked where the classification of wireless Bluetooth earphones, earbuds, headphones and headsets was subject to divergent Tribunal views.

Analysis: Section 28(1) prescribes the ordinary two-year period for issuing a demand notice, while Section 28(4) permits a five-year period only where non-levy or short-levy arises from collusion, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts with intent to evade duty. The classification dispute involved conflicting decisions of coordinate Benches and had been referred for consideration by a Larger Bench. The assessee's claimed classification and exemption claim consequently reflected a bona fide interpretative position, rather than any deliberate misstatement or suppression. The Department did not establish the statutory ingredients necessary to invoke the extended period.

Conclusion: The extended period under Section 28(4) of the Customs Act, 1962 was not invocable; duty demands beyond the normal limitation period, along with redemption fine and penalties, were set aside. The classification issue was left open.

Issues: Whether CENVAT credit was admissible on staff health insurance, club membership, rent-a-cab and travel agent services used in connection with the manufacture of excisable goods for the periods before and after 1 April 2011.

Analysis: For the pre-amendment period, the services were connected with business activities, their expenditure was recorded in the accounts, and the assessable value of the final products was determined taking such expenditure into account. They consequently fell within the expression activities relating to business in the inclusive part of the definition of input service. For the post-amendment period, credit remained available where the services were not meant for employees' personal use. There was no material establishing personal consumption; the services were availed for employees in the course of business.

Conclusion: CENVAT credit on the disputed services was admissible to the assessee for both periods.

Issues: Whether insolvency proceedings, moratorium and subsequent liquidation of the company bar or warrant quashing of prosecution against its directors/persons in charge for cheque dishonour.

Analysis: The offence had crystallised upon dishonour of the cheques, service of demand notice and failure to pay, all before commencement of the corporate insolvency resolution process. The moratorium protects the corporate debtor and does not extinguish the independent criminal liability of natural persons who were in charge of the company when the offence was committed. Subsequent suspension of the board's powers and liquidation do not erase such pre-existing liability. Proceedings for cheque dishonour are criminal in character, whereas insolvency moratorium postpones civil debt enforcement; parallel insolvency proceedings therefore do not bar the prosecution. Questions concerning the petitioners' responsibility for the company and fulfilment of the statutory ingredients must be determined at trial.

Conclusion: Insolvency proceedings and liquidation do not preclude continuation of the cheque-dishonour prosecution against the petitioners; no case for quashing was established.

Issues: (i) Whether the show cause notice and adjudication order issued against an amalgamating company that had ceased to exist were valid; (ii) Whether the successor transferee company had locus to challenge those proceedings.

Issue (i): Whether the show cause notice and adjudication order issued against an amalgamating company that had ceased to exist were valid.

Analysis: The notice and order were issued and uploaded on the GST portal in the name of the amalgamating entity after it had ceased to exist. The amalgamation had been disclosed to the authorities before initiation of the notice and in the reply to it. A passing reference to the transferee company did not cure proceedings initiated, continued and concluded against the non-existent entity. The adjudication order contained no reasoning that proceedings were validly directed against the successor, and its reasons could not be supplemented through submissions in court. Although liabilities and pending proceedings existing on the effective date of amalgamation devolve upon the transferee, any fresh proceedings to impose or recover pre-amalgamation liabilities must be initiated against the transferee and not the dissolved transferor. Participation by the successor did not validate the jurisdictional defect.

Conclusion: The show cause notice and adjudication order issued against the non-existent amalgamating entity were invalid and were quashed, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the successor transferee company had locus to challenge those proceedings.

Analysis: The successor was the entity upon which the Revenue sought to fasten any liability resulting from the impugned proceedings. Denying it the right to challenge the order while treating it as liable for its consequences would deprive it of an effective legal remedy and create an unjust anomaly.

Conclusion: The successor transferee company had locus to maintain the writ petition, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The Revenue may, if legally entitled, institute fresh proceedings against the successor entity; the merits of any tax liability remain open.

Ratio Decidendi: Proceedings initiated and concluded against an entity that has ceased to exist upon amalgamation are void, and successor participation or devolution of liabilities cannot cure that defect; proceedings for pre-amalgamation liabilities must be initiated against the transferee entity.

Issues: Whether GST registration cancelled for non-response to a show-cause notice could be restored despite dismissal of the statutory appeal as time-barred.

Analysis: Exercising writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the Court treated the matter as identical to prior cases in which restoration was granted upon compliance with return-filing and payment obligations under the Goods and Services Act, 2017. The respondents had accepted restoration for defaulting dealers who completed the requisite statutory compliances.

Conclusion: The GST registration was directed to be restored upon the petitioner approaching the competent authority within seven days and completing the requisite formalities; the petitioner was required to file pending returns and pay tax, penalty and interest within the stipulated period, failing which the restoration order would cease to operate.

Issues: Whether cancellation of GST registration and dismissal of the statutory appeal as time-barred warranted interference and restoration of registration upon settlement of outstanding statutory dues.

Analysis: The appellate authority could not condone delay beyond the outer period prescribed under Section 107. The petitioner had also not pursued revocation or appeal within the prescribed limitation. However, the outstanding tax position, the petitioner's willingness to discharge all tax, interest, late fee and penalty, and the absence of objection from the State subject to such payment justified restoration on terms.

Conclusion: The cancellation and appellate orders were set aside, and registration was directed to be revived upon payment of the quantified tax liability, interest, late fee and penalty within the stipulated period.

Issues: Whether the adjudication order could stand where the assessee had not been afforded adequate opportunity to file a merits reply and participate in the proceedings.

Analysis: The assessee sought time after asserting lack of knowledge of the common show-cause notice, suspended registration, and the need to examine voluminous records concerning input tax credit. It had not filed a reply on merits. There was no established repeated request for adjournment, deliberate avoidance of proceedings, or clear prior service of the notice. In these individual circumstances, denial of a further effective opportunity rendered the adjudication doubtful.

Conclusion: The adjudication against the assessee was unsustainable and required fresh consideration after permitting a final reply, applications for relied-upon documents or cross-examination, and a properly notified personal hearing.

Issues: (i) Whether a final assessment could be made against a non-resident eligible assessee without first issuing a draft assessment order under Section 144C; (ii) whether best judgment assessment under Section 144 was valid despite the return and responses having been filed; (iii) whether the Assessing Officer at Gurgaon had jurisdiction to complete the faceless assessment of the non-resident assessee; and (iv) whether the addition for the alleged property purchase could be sustained where duplicate reporting and source of the actual investment had been explained.

Issue (i): Whether a final assessment could be made against a non-resident eligible assessee without first issuing a draft assessment order under Section 144C.

Analysis: The assessee disclosed and substantiated non-resident status through the return, stay calculation and passport records. That status was reflected in the assessment order and computation and was not disputed through any further enquiry. A non-resident other than a company is an eligible assessee. A variation prejudicial to such assessee required prior service of a draft order, preserving the statutory right to approach the Dispute Resolution Panel. The direct final assessment defeated that right and constituted a jurisdictional defect, not a curable procedural irregularity.

Conclusion: The final assessment without a draft order under Section 144C was without jurisdiction and invalid, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether best judgment assessment under Section 144 was valid despite the return and responses having been filed.

Analysis: The return filed in response to reassessment notice was e-verified and was acted upon by issuance of notice under Section 143(2). Although the first notice under Section 142(1) was not answered, the subsequent notice substantially sought the same particulars and was answered with supporting material; subsequent communications were also answered. The statutory preconditions for best judgment assessment, namely failure to file a return or failure to comply with the relevant notices, were therefore absent.

Conclusion: Invocation of Section 144 was invalid, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether the Assessing Officer at Gurgaon had jurisdiction to complete the faceless assessment of the non-resident assessee.

Analysis: The Revenue accepted that an assessee found to be non-resident would fall under the jurisdiction of the International Taxation officer. Since non-resident status stood accepted, the Gurgaon officer lacked jurisdiction. The objection under Section 124(3) was unavailable in the peculiar faceless-assessment setting, where the officer assumed control only at the final stage and allowed less than twenty-four hours to respond.

Conclusion: The Gurgaon Assessing Officer lacked jurisdiction to complete the assessment, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iv): Whether the addition for the alleged property purchase could be sustained where duplicate reporting and source of the actual investment had been explained.

Analysis: The material showed one agricultural-property purchase for Rs. 50,00,000, while the figure of Rs. 2,04,60,800 resulted from the same stamp-value transaction being reported four times. The purchase document, bank records and remittances into the NRE account explained both the transaction and its source. The assessment disregarded this material and proceeded solely because the limitation period was expiring. No basis existed to remand the matter where the record already established duplicate reporting and explained source.

Conclusion: The addition based on the alleged purchase value was unsustainable, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The assessment suffered from mandatory-procedure violations, absence of jurisdictional conditions, lack of proper assessing-officer jurisdiction and arbitrariness in disregarding material establishing the actual transaction and its explained source.

Ratio Decidendi: A prejudicial assessment of a non-resident eligible assessee without a prior draft order under Section 144C, or a best judgment assessment absent its statutory preconditions, is jurisdictionally invalid.

Issues: Whether rejection of the assessee's stay applications without recording reasons was legally sustainable.

Analysis: The impugned orders contained no reasons for refusing stay. Recording reasons is an essential requirement of natural justice applicable to judicial and administrative decisions; it ensures objective decision-making and permits scrutiny of the decision. An unreasoned order cannot be sustained in law.

Conclusion: The rejection of the stay applications without reasons was invalid, in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether a transfer-pricing adjustment for advertising, marketing and promotion expenditure could be sustained by applying the Bright Line Test.

Analysis: The adjustment treated AMP expenditure exceeding that of comparables as incurred for building the foreign associated enterprise's brand and computed its arm's length price through the Bright Line Test. The jurisdictional High Court had rejected that method for determining the arm's length price of AMP-related international transactions. Although the Revenue's challenge to that precedent was pending before the Supreme Court, no contrary superior-court ruling or stay of the High Court ruling was shown. The binding jurisdictional precedent therefore governed the assessment.

Conclusion: The Bright Line Test adjustment for AMP expenditure was deleted, in favour of the assessee; both parties remain bound by the outcome of the pending Supreme Court proceedings.

Issues: (i) Whether the assessments initiated under Section 153C were valid despite the challenge to the satisfaction note, approval and reliance on subsequently received investigation material; (ii) Whether estimated commission income from alleged accommodation-entry transactions should be computed at 1.75% or 0.47%; (iii) Whether the addition for cash deposited from locker cash was sustainable; (iv) Whether the addition for the assessee's share of jewellery and foreign currency found in lockers was sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the assessments initiated under Section 153C were valid despite the challenge to the satisfaction note, approval and reliance on subsequently received investigation material.

Analysis: The proceedings were initiated following seizure of incriminating documents in the searched person's case. The record established that approval under Section 153D had been obtained. The assertion that no satisfaction note existed was unsupported by cogent evidence. Once jurisdiction under Section 153C was validly assumed, material subsequently received from the investigation wing could also be considered in the assessment.

Conclusion: The jurisdiction under Section 153C was valid; this issue is against the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether estimated commission income from alleged accommodation-entry transactions should be computed at 1.75% or 0.47%.

Analysis: A coordinate bench's earlier order in the assessee's own case on materially similar transactions had determined the appropriate commission rate at 0.47%. Consistency required application of that rate to the aggregate transaction values adopted in the assessments.

Conclusion: Commission income shall be recomputed at 0.47% of the relevant aggregate transaction value; this issue is in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether the addition for cash deposited from locker cash was sustainable.

Analysis: The assessee did not furnish a cogent explanation of the source of cash found in lockers. However, the material indicated that the assessee held only a 25% share, and the claim that the amount had already been assessed in an earlier year required verification.

Conclusion: The issue is restored to the appellate authority for fresh consideration after the assessee is afforded an opportunity to establish the source and its claim of prior assessment.

Issue (iv): Whether the addition for the assessee's share of jewellery and foreign currency found in lockers was sustainable.

Analysis: The jewellery and foreign currency were found in lockers held by the assessee's family, and the assessee's proportionate ownership was determined at one-fourth. The assessee failed to substantiate that the assets were acquired from disclosed sources.

Conclusion: The addition for the assessee's proportionate share of the unexplained assets is sustained; this issue is against the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The assessments remain jurisdictionally valid, while the accommodation-entry commission additions require recalculation at the consistent rate of 0.47%; the locker-cash addition requires fresh adjudication and the unexplained-assets addition remains sustained.

Ratio Decidendi: Upon valid assumption of jurisdiction under Section 153C, subsequently received relevant investigation material may be considered, and estimation of income on comparable facts must follow the consistently determined rate.

Issues: Whether the services supplied by the appellant to overseas group entities under the service agreements constituted intermediary services or export of services.

Analysis: Rule 2(f) of the Place of Provision of Services Rules, 2012 requires an intermediary to arrange or facilitate a main supply between two or more persons and to have the character of an agent, broker or similar person. The exclusion for a person supplying services on its own account restricts an expansive application of the definition. The Board clarification recognises that intermediary services require three parties and two distinct supplies, whereas a subcontractor or a supplier rendering the main service on a principal-to-principal basis is not an intermediary. The agreements prohibited the appellant from concluding or negotiating sales contracts and provided for remuneration based on actual costs plus a markup, without linkage to sales. The appellant rendered the contracted support, technical, manufacturing, administrative and related services on its own account; it neither negotiated sales nor merely brought customers and overseas entities together. Services rendered to third parties at the overseas recipient's behest remained services supplied to that recipient, which was contractually entitled to receive them and liable to pay for them.

Conclusion: The appellant was not an intermediary; the services qualified as export of services. The demand of service tax and the penalties were unsustainable.

Issues: Whether duty paid on supplementary invoices raising a price increase not accepted or paid by the buyer is refundable, and whether the bar of unjust enrichment applies.

Analysis: The assessable value is confined to the transaction value, namely the price actually paid or payable. Since the buyer neither accepted the proposed price revision nor became liable to pay the enhanced amount, that amount could not form part of the transaction value. The duty paid on the unaccepted enhancement was consequently an excess payment. The buyer's certification that it neither paid the supplementary invoice amounts nor availed Cenvat credit established that the incidence of duty had not been passed on, excluding unjust enrichment.

Conclusion: The refund claim for duty paid on the unaccepted supplementary-invoice price enhancement is admissible, and unjust enrichment does not bar the refund.

Issues: Whether the confirmation of the provisional attachment order was sustainable when the Adjudicating Authority did not give reasoned findings on the appellant's material objections.

Analysis: Section 8(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 requires adjudication of the issues raised in opposition to attachment. Although the impugned order was detailed and reproduced the parties' pleadings, it did not address the material objections concerning the absence of a money trail, the alleged connection between the attached property and the proceeds of crime, and the claimed non-involvement of the appellant's deceased husband in the predicate conduct. The absence of reasons on these objections rendered the adjudication non-speaking.

Conclusion: The confirmation order was set aside and the matter was remanded to the Adjudicating Authority for fresh adjudication after dealing with every issue raised by the appellant.

Issues: Whether steel wire ropes drawn from iron wire rods, on which sales tax had already been suffered, could be separately subjected to tax at 12%.

Analysis: Steel wire ropes drawn from taxed iron wire rods are not a separate taxable commodity. The applicable single-point taxation regime for declared goods and the settled principle governing iron wires and ropes precluded a further levy. The assessment and appellate orders failed to apply this governing legal position.

Conclusion: The levy of tax at 12% on steel wire ropes was unsustainable and could not be maintained.

Outcome: Delay condoned; Special Leave Petition dismissed and interlocutory applications disposed of.

Issues: (i) Whether the delay in filing the appeal against the intimation could be condoned; (ii) Whether foreign tax credit claimed and supported by Form No. 67 could be denied without verification.

Issue (i): Whether the delay in filing the appeal against the intimation could be condoned.

Analysis: The delay resulted from lack of awareness of the electronic procedure for filing Form No. 35 and of the availability of an appeal against the processing intimation. The appeal was filed upon obtaining professional advice. These circumstances constituted sufficient cause.

Conclusion: The delay was liable to be condoned, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether foreign tax credit claimed and supported by Form No. 67 could be denied without verification.

Analysis: Foreign tax credit was claimed in the return and Form No. 67 was stated to have been available before processing. The material included evidence of tax deducted in Tanzania, the corresponding foreign income, and the applicable double taxation avoidance arrangement. A lawful credit cannot be denied merely on a technical basis where its eligibility requires verification.

Conclusion: The foreign tax credit claim must be verified and granted if found allowable in accordance with law, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The foreign tax credit claim was restored for verification on merits after condoning the filing delay.

Ratio Decidendi: A taxpayer who establishes sufficient cause for delayed electronic filing of an appeal cannot be denied examination of a foreign tax credit claim on merits; a substantiated credit must be granted if legally allowable after verification.