Voluntary disclosure under Sabka Vishwas remains available unless enquiry, investigation, or audit had begun before the cut-off date.

A taxpayer is not excluded from making a voluntary disclosure under the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019 unless it had already been subjected to enquiry, investigation, or audit on or before the cut-off date. A revenue letter seeking verification of service tax records was treated as a verification request, not the commencement of an enquiry or investigation, and any summons or further action issued only after 30 June 2019 did not trigger the disqualification in Section 125(1)(f) of the Finance Act, 2019. On that basis, the taxpayer remained eligible to file a declaration under the Scheme.

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Issues: Whether the petitioner was ineligible to make a declaration under the voluntary disclosure category of the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019 on the ground that it had already been subjected to an enquiry or investigation before filing the declaration.

Analysis: The disqualifying clause in Section 125(1)(f) of the Finance Act, 2019 was read in the context of the Scheme as a whole. The letter relied upon by the revenue was treated as a request for verification of service tax records and not as the commencement of an enquiry or investigation. Even otherwise, the summons and any such action were issued only after 30 June 2019. The settled view applied was that voluntary disclosure is barred only where the assessee had been subjected to enquiry, investigation, or audit on or before the cut-off date, and post-cut-off action does not attract the exclusion.

Conclusion: The petitioner was not hit by the exclusion in Section 125(1)(f) and was eligible to file a declaration under the Scheme.

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