Issues: Whether the appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) was filed within the condonable period under Section 85(3A) of the Finance Act, 1994.

Analysis: Limitation commenced from receipt of the Order-in-Original, not from its date. The order was received on 12.04.2024 and the appeal was dispatched on 18.06.2024, resulting in a delay of six days beyond the prescribed two-month period. Dispatch was treated as the filing date. The delay was within the additional one-month period capable of condonation, and the need to reset the old service-tax password and obtain old documents established bona fides and sufficient cause.

Conclusion: The delay was condonable and ought to have been condoned; the limitation dismissal was unsustainable. The issue is decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: (i) Whether the cash deposits were unexplained; (ii) Whether rejection of books of account and estimation of gross profit at 12% were sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the cash deposits were unexplained.

Analysis: The assessee had furnished details of students who paid fees in cash. The Revenue did not dispute the educational activity, the filing of those details, or raise any specific query challenging the source of the deposits as student fees.

Conclusion: The cash-deposit addition was deleted in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether rejection of books of account and estimation of gross profit at 12% were sustainable.

Analysis: Cash deposits and cash expenses in the regular activity, without any other specific defect identified in the book entries, did not justify summary rejection of the books of account.

Conclusion: The rejection of books and gross-profit estimation at 12% were deleted in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The additions based on unexplained cash deposits and estimated gross profit do not survive.

Issues: Whether rejection of registration under section 12AB without identifying and recording a reasoned finding of a specified violation was sustainable.

Analysis: Registration under section 12AB(1)(b) requires examination of the trust's objects, genuineness of its activities, and material legal compliance. A refusal or cancellation premised on section 12AB(4) must be founded on a definite finding that a specified violation, as defined in its Explanation, exists. The observations concerning cash deposits, donations, expenditure and possible application of section 13(1)(b) did not identify any particular statutory violation or establish that the transactions contravened the Income-tax Act, 1961, or any other applicable law. Material contentions concerning the character and genuineness of the activities and the applicability of section 13(1)(b) also remained unadjudicated. A fresh inquiry into receipts, donor trusts, application of funds, salary expenditure, and any violation of the Income-tax Act, 1961, is therefore required with an effective opportunity of hearing.

Conclusion: The rejection of registration cannot stand on the recorded findings and requires fresh adjudication by the Commissioner in accordance with the statutory framework.

Issues: Whether the Chapter 11 Trustee could be retained as a defendant in the commercial suit concerning domains and websites already dealt with in United States bankruptcy proceedings.

Analysis: The plaintiffs had participated in the United States bankruptcy proceedings, in which the subject assets were sold pursuant to orders of the competent foreign court. The material orders and the plaintiffs' participation were not fully disclosed. No substantive relief was claimed against the Trustee, whose role was confined to conducting the court-authorised sale. The plaint sought to create a local cause of action despite the foreign incorporation of the entities against whom declaratory relief was effectively sought, their non-joinder, and the absence of a cause of action against the Trustee. Section 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 did not apply because the application sought striking out of the Trustee through inherent powers, rather than a stay of the suit on account of pendency before a foreign court.

Conclusion: The Trustee was not a necessary party, and the plaint disclosed no cause of action against her; she was directed to be struck off from the party array.

Issues: Whether penalties under Rule 26 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002 can be sustained against co-noticees where the principal noticee has settled the underlying duty dispute under the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019.

Analysis: The principal noticee had settled the dispute concerning allegedly irregular CENVAT credit under the Scheme. Applying binding coordinate-Bench decisions on materially identical facts, the settlement of the demand under the Scheme entailed waiver of penalties not only for the principal noticee but also for co-noticees, notwithstanding that the co-noticees had not independently filed declarations under the Scheme. The contrary view of a Single Member Bench could not prevail over the coordinate Division Bench decisions.

Conclusion: Penalties imposed on the co-noticees under Rule 26 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002 are unsustainable. The issue is decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether an assessee, whose assessment order was uploaded only on the common portal and who did not file a statutory appeal within the prescribed period, should be afforded a further opportunity to appeal against the levy of interest and penalty.

Analysis: Section 107 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 prescribes the period for an appeal from an adjudication order. Section 169 recognises making an order available on the common portal as a valid mode of service. However, where the order was communicated only through a portal requiring navigation through multiple windows, and no other mode of communication was adopted, a small business person could not reasonably be expected repeatedly to access the portal to ascertain whether an order had been uploaded. Additional modes of communication ought to have been used to ensure proper reckoning of the appellate period.

Conclusion: The assessee was entitled to a further opportunity to file a statutory appeal against the interest and penalty demand.

Issues: (i) Whether supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 may be invoked against an arbitral order rejecting a jurisdictional objection under Section 16(2) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996; (ii) Whether claims for restructuring companies, division of their assets and shares, and consequential corporate reliefs are arbitrable under a memorandum of understanding between individual parties.

Issue (i): Whether supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 may be invoked against an arbitral order rejecting a jurisdictional objection under Section 16(2) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

Analysis: An order rejecting a plea under Section 16(2) is not appealable under Section 37(2)(a). Although Section 5 restricts judicial intervention and ordinarily requires parties to await the award and pursue the statutory remedy under Section 34, supervisory review remains available in exceptional cases where the arbitral tribunal patently lacks inherent jurisdiction or the dispute is governed by an exclusive statutory mechanism.

Conclusion: The petition under Article 227 was maintainable because the jurisdictional objection concerned a claimed total absence of arbitral jurisdiction.

Issue (ii): Whether claims for restructuring companies, division of their assets and shares, and consequential corporate reliefs are arbitrable under a memorandum of understanding between individual parties.

Analysis: The claims sought division of corporate assets and liabilities, allotment or buy-out of shares, alteration of management, and sale of company assets. The companies were not parties to the memorandum of understanding, while the reliefs affected their functioning, minority shareholder rights and third-party interests. Such reliefs fall within the extensive statutory powers of the National Company Law Tribunal under Sections 241 and 242 of the Companies Act, 2013. The dispute was therefore an intra-company action in rem requiring centralised statutory adjudication, rather than a personal dispute capable of private arbitral resolution.

Conclusion: The corporate restructuring claims were non-arbitrable and fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Company Law Tribunal; the arbitral tribunal lacked jurisdiction over those claims.

Final Conclusion: The jurisdictional order was set aside to the extent it retained arbitral jurisdiction over the claims concerning the three companies, and those arbitral proceedings were terminated while statutory remedies and any otherwise arbitrable proceedings remained open.

Ratio Decidendi: Supervisory jurisdiction may exceptionally be exercised to prevent arbitration of disputes that are non-arbitrable because they concern corporate restructuring and rights requiring exclusive adjudication by a statutory forum.

Issues: Whether a SEBI-registered Category II Alternative Investment Fund was entitled to exemption under Section 10(23FBA) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 on interest income, short-term capital gains and processing fee, or whether such receipts could be reclassified as business income so as to deny pass-through treatment under Section 115UB of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: Section 10(23FBA) read with Section 115UB of the Income-tax Act, 1961 grants exemption at the fund level to income of a Category I or Category II investment fund other than income chargeable under the head profits and gains of business or profession, with corresponding taxation of such non-business income in the hands of unit holders. The decisive question was therefore whether the impugned receipts had the character of business income. The record showed that the assessee was a SEBI-registered Category II AIF functioning as an investment vehicle, was prohibited from undertaking leverage except within limited regulatory bounds, had shown its holdings as investments and not stock-in-trade, and had earned interest on debt securities, gains on sale of mutual fund units, and additional return linked to NCD investments described as processing fee. The settled tests for business income characterisation, including intention at acquisition, frequency and volume of transactions, treatment in books, source of funds, trading infrastructure and overall conduct, were not applied by the Assessing Officer. The recharacterisation was made on presumptions and on an incorrect factual premise treating the assessee as a venture capital fund and invoking provisions relevant to Section 10(23FB) and Section 115U instead of the regime under Section 10(23FBA) and Section 115UB. The processing fee was found to be intrinsically connected with the investment yield and merely being so labelled did not convert it into business income. The objection based on non-furnishing of Schedule PTI was also unsustainable because that schedule was required to be filled by investors receiving pass-through income and not by the investment fund itself. The absence of any proper enquiry, factual analysis, rejection of books, or specific notice proposing such reclassification further undermined the assessment.

Conclusion: The income earned by the assessee could not be reclassified as business income; the assessee was entitled to exemption under Section 10(23FBA) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 on the impugned receipts, and the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: (i) Whether depreciation on goodwill arising upon amalgamation was allowable, including where the amalgamation was accounted for under the pooling of interest method; (ii) whether transfer pricing adjustment by imputing notional interest on overdue receivables from associated enterprises was warranted.

Issue (i): Whether depreciation on goodwill arising upon amalgamation was allowable, including where the amalgamation was accounted for under the pooling of interest method.

Analysis: The excess of the consideration paid for acquisition of the shares over the net assets taken over on amalgamation was treated as goodwill. The earlier binding view that goodwill is an intangible asset eligible for depreciation under section 32(1)(ii) was followed. The Tribunal held that the cited provisions concerning actual cost, written down value, transfer on amalgamation, and nil cost for self-generated goodwill did not create a specific bar against depreciation on goodwill arising pursuant to amalgamation. The method of accounting in the books, including pooling of interest, was held to be irrelevant for tax allowability where the claim otherwise satisfied the Act.

Conclusion: Depreciation on goodwill arising upon amalgamation was held allowable and the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether transfer pricing adjustment by imputing notional interest on overdue receivables from associated enterprises was warranted.

Analysis: The adjustment was examined in the light of the Tribunal's earlier view that where the assessee was debt free and did not incur significant interest cost, and where comparable treatment was not shown for payables, no separate notional interest adjustment on delayed receivables was justified. The receivables adjustment was therefore found unsustainable on the facts and the judicial precedent followed.

Conclusion: The transfer pricing adjustment on account of notional interest on overdue receivables was held unwarranted and the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The assessee succeeded on the principal issues decided on merits, while the remaining grounds were either not pressed or not separately adjudicated, resulting in partial relief overall.

Ratio Decidendi: Goodwill arising on amalgamation is an eligible intangible asset for depreciation under section 32(1)(ii) absent any specific statutory prohibition, and notional interest on overdue receivables is not automatically deductible as a transfer pricing adjustment where the facts and precedent do not justify such imputation.

Issues: Whether the assessee-trust was entitled to claim deemed application of income under Explanation 2(ii)(b) to section 11(1) for the assessment year 2015-16 without filing Form 9A or Form 10.

Analysis: The assessee's claim was under the separate mechanism in Explanation 2(ii)(b) to section 11(1), not under section 11(2). For A.Y. 2015-16, the statutory requirement was only that the option be exercised in writing before the due date under section 139(1). The later requirement of filing the option in a prescribed form was introduced from A.Y. 2016-17 and could not be applied retrospectively. The material on record showed that the assessee had disclosed the claim and the supporting particulars before completion of assessment, and the subsequent application of the amount towards charitable purposes was also demonstrated.

Conclusion: The non-filing of Form 9A or Form 10 did not disentitle the assessee to deemed application of income for A.Y. 2015-16, and the disallowance was unsustainable.

Issues: (i) Whether maintenance of minimum average balance by bank customers constituted consideration for the banks' free or concessional banking facilities so as to attract service tax or GST under the declared-service/supply provisions; (ii) whether the impugned show cause notices could be sustained despite the availability of an alternative remedy.

Issue (i): Whether maintenance of minimum average balance by bank customers constituted consideration for the banks' free or concessional banking facilities so as to attract service tax or GST under the declared-service/supply provisions.

Analysis: The governing charging and valuation provisions require a taxable service or supply to be supported by consideration, and the declared-service entry on agreeing to do an act applies only where there is an express or implied contractual arrangement with a necessary and sufficient nexus between the obligation undertaken by one party and the consideration flowing from the other. The maintenance of minimum average balance was held to be only a contractual condition governing the account relationship. The banks did not charge any fee for the facilities in question merely because the balance was maintained, the customer retained the right to withdraw the funds, and the only monetary consequence of non-compliance was a penal charge on which tax was already paid. Board circulars relied upon by the respondents themselves were read as requiring an independent agreement and actual consideration, and not mere presumptions from the flow of money or contractual stipulations.

Conclusion: Maintenance of minimum average balance was not consideration for the banking facilities, and the impugned demand could not be sustained on the basis of supply or declared service.

Issue (ii): Whether the impugned show cause notices could be sustained despite the availability of an alternative remedy.

Analysis: The notices were found to proceed on a pre-determined jurisdictional premise and to raise a pure question of law, namely whether the alleged activity was taxable at all. In such circumstances, the usual rule of exhaustion of alternative remedy did not bar writ jurisdiction, particularly where the challenge went to the root of authority and jurisdiction and no disputed facts required trial.

Conclusion: The writ petitions were maintainable and the alternative remedy objection was rejected.

Final Conclusion: The show cause notices and all consequential proceedings were held to be arbitrary, without jurisdiction, and contrary to the statutory scheme and binding circulars, and were quashed in entirety.

Ratio Decidendi: A contractual condition is not consideration unless there is a real quid pro quo supported by an express or implied agreement and a direct nexus between the obligation undertaken and the benefit received; absent such nexus, no taxable supply or declared service arises.

Issues: Whether the petitioner's tobacco product, processed only by sprinkling jaggery water and without addition of flavours or other materials, amounted to manufacture and was classifiable so as to attract the enhanced compensation cess demanded by the department.

Analysis: The Court applied the settled test of manufacture, namely whether processing results in emergence of a new product having a distinct name, character and use. It relied on the earlier Division Bench ruling on identical tobacco-processing facts, together with the HSN Explanatory Notes on unmanufactured tobacco, to hold that mere sprinkling of jaggery water and similar treatment do not transform raw tobacco into a different product. Section 2(72) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 was also referred to as reflecting the same principle.

Conclusion: The petitioner's activity did not amount to manufacture and its product continued to fall under unmanufactured tobacco classification. The demand, penalty and related levy order were unsustainable and were set aside, with the writ petition allowed in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether the impugned order, passed on the appellant's application under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, was liable to be set aside for want of reasons and non-consideration of the reliefs and grounds raised, and whether the matter required remand for decision on merits.

Analysis: The order challenged before the Tribunal dealt only with one of the reliefs sought and did not record any finding on the remaining prayers or the grounds advanced in support of them. An adjudicatory order is expected to consider the pleadings and disclose reasons for acceptance or rejection of the contentions raised, so that the parties know why relief is granted or declined. An order passed without dealing with the material objections and without assigning reasons is treated as non-speaking and vitiated for want of application of mind.

Conclusion: The impugned order was quashed, and the application was remitted to the NCLT for fresh decision on merits.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded to the extent of setting aside the unreasoned order and restoring the matter for independent adjudication.

Ratio Decidendi: An adjudicatory order that does not consider the material pleadings and fails to assign reasons for accepting or rejecting the relief sought is a non-speaking order liable to be set aside and remitted for fresh consideration on merits.

Issues: Whether the petitioner, having not received the show cause notice and having been unable to file a reply, should be granted an opportunity to respond before the adjudicating authority passes a fresh order.

Analysis: The petition was directed against an order passed under Section 107 of the West Bengal Goods and Services Tax Act and the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The Court noted that the petitioner had not been able to receive the show cause notice or file a reply and, therefore, had been deprived of an opportunity to place its defence before the authority. In these circumstances, the Court considered it appropriate to restore the petitioner's opportunity to respond and to require the authority to reconsider the matter after hearing the petitioner and by passing a reasoned order in accordance with law.

Conclusion: The petitioner was permitted to file a reply within four weeks, and the authority was directed to consider the same, afford a hearing, and pass a reasoned order within the stipulated time.

Issues: Whether receipts from web hosting services received by the assessee from its Indian customer were taxable in India as royalty or fees for technical services under the Income-tax Act, 1961 and the India-USA DTAA.

Analysis: The web hosting arrangement showed that the assessee provided standard server space, internet connectivity and related infrastructure, while the customer had no possession, operational control or dominion over the servers. Limited inspection rights for security verification did not amount to use or right to use industrial, commercial or scientific equipment. The payments were therefore for availing a facility and not for use of equipment, and the domestic-law expansion of royalty could not enlarge the treaty definition in the absence of a corresponding treaty amendment. The services also did not make available technical knowledge, skill, know-how or process so as to constitute fees for technical services under the treaty.

Conclusion: The receipts from web hosting services were held not taxable in India as royalty or fees for technical services, and the Revenue's appeals were rejected.

Issues: Whether delay in filing and re-filing an appeal under Section 62 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 can be condoned beyond the statutory outer limit and beyond the period allowed for curing defects under the Supreme Court Rules, 2013.

Analysis: Section 62 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 prescribes a strict limitation regime, allowing an appeal within 45 days and, on sufficient cause, only a further 15-day grace period. The Court held that once the statutory window closes, the jurisdiction to condone filing delay ceases. It further held that a defective appeal under Section 62 must be cured within the 28-day period contemplated by Rule 6 of Order VIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, and that re-filing delay beyond that period cannot be condoned so as to keep the appeal alive. The Court rejected the contention that re-filing delay stands on a different footing from filing delay in this statutory setting and held that Article 142 cannot be used to override the express limitation scheme.

Conclusion: Condonation of the delay in filing and re-filing was held impermissible, and the appeal was dismissed as time-barred.

Outcome: The miscellaneous application was allowed and the earlier appellate order was recalled only for adjudication of the remaining corporate disallowance grounds, with the appeal fixed for fresh hearing on those grounds alone.

Issues: (i) whether the transfer pricing adjustment on account of royalty payment was justified; (ii) whether the transfer pricing adjustment on account of management support services was justified, including the rejection of the aggregation approach and the evidences furnished.

Issue (i): whether the transfer pricing adjustment on account of royalty payment was justified.

Analysis: The assessee had incurred research and product development expenses and had already recovered the corresponding cost from its associated enterprises with a markup of 10%. The adjustment made by the Assessing Officer ignored the revenue already disclosed from the associated enterprises towards such services. The record showed that the assessee had effectively charged more than the cost incurred, and the proposed addition was based on an incomplete appreciation of the figures.

Conclusion: The royalty-related transfer pricing adjustment was deleted and the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): whether the transfer pricing adjustment on account of management support services was justified, including the rejection of the aggregation approach and the evidences furnished.

Analysis: The assessee had benchmarked its international transactions under TNMM and had substantiated the management support services by inter-company agreements, role descriptions, e-mails, allocation workings, and historical acceptance of similar charges. The unilateral segregation of only one element of the grouped transactions and its benchmarking by a different method was held inconsistent with the accepted approach. On the facts, the services were found not to be duplicate in nature and the adjustment was not supported.

Conclusion: The transfer pricing adjustment for management support services was deleted and the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The appeal was allowed with both transfer pricing additions deleted, resulting in complete relief to the assessee on the substantive grounds adjudicated.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an assessee has consistently benchmarked inter-linked international transactions under TNMM and substantiates the services received with contemporaneous evidence, the transfer pricing officer cannot isolate one transaction and apply a different method or make a nil-alp adjustment merely on the basis of perceived benefit or duplication.

Issues: Whether the addition made on account of alleged bogus purchases deserved full disallowance or was to be restricted to the profit element embedded in such purchases.

Analysis: The assessee had furnished invoices, bank statements, stock register, delivery challans and other corroborative material, and the sales were not doubted. The books of account were not rejected. The addition was based substantially on general information from the Sales Tax Department and non-production of the alleged suppliers, but no specific defect in the documentary evidence or case-specific enquiry discrediting the purchases was demonstrated. In these circumstances, the Tribunal held that the proper course was not to tax the entire purchase value. Relying on the principle that only the profit embedded in non-genuine purchases can be brought to tax, the Tribunal directed computation of the differential gross profit, if any, attributable to the disputed purchases.

Conclusion: The full addition was not sustained; the matter was confined to the profit element, if any, in the alleged bogus purchases, resulting in partial relief to the assessee.

Issues: Whether the writ petitions challenging orders of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal were maintainable in view of the statutory appellate remedy under Section 35G of the Central Excise Act, 1944.

Analysis: The objection to maintainability was accepted after considering Section 35G of the Central Excise Act, 1944 and the respondents' preliminary objection that the proper course was a statutory appeal rather than writ jurisdiction. The petitioner was permitted to take back the papers and present the matters as Civil Miscellaneous Appeals.

Conclusion: The writ petitions were held to be not maintainable and the objection was upheld.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the Tribunal's orders did not proceed in writ jurisdiction, and the petitioner was directed to pursue the statutory appellate remedy.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a specific statutory appeal lies under Section 35G of the Central Excise Act, 1944, writ jurisdiction should not be invoked to bypass that remedy.