Issues: Whether the provisional attachment of the immovable properties was valid on the footing that the transactions were benami transactions and the appellants failed to disprove the source of consideration and the routing of funds.

Analysis: The properties were purchased in the names of the appellants, whose disclosed income was negligible or insufficient to match the consideration paid. The material on record showed that the consideration reached the sellers through a chain of banking transactions preceded by cash deposits in the accounts of intermediaries, and the persons/entities who routed the funds were unable to explain the source of the cash or establish any genuine lending or contractual arrangement. The statements recorded under section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 from the sellers and intermediaries were relied upon to show payment over and above the registered sale consideration. The Tribunal treated these circumstances as sufficient to establish a prima facie benami arrangement within the meaning of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, and held that the appellants failed to rebut the inference or explain their own source of funds.

Conclusion: The provisional attachment was upheld and the benami findings were sustained against the appellants.

Final Conclusion: The appeals were not found fit for interference, and the attachments confirmed by the Adjudicating Authority stood affirmed.

Ratio Decidendi: A benami transaction may be established on a prima facie basis by a chain of unexplained cash routing, insufficient disclosed income, and unrefuted circumstantial evidence, and once such material is shown, the burden shifts to the appellant to prove the real source of consideration and displace the benami inference.

Issues: Whether an Hon'ble Member of Parliament and other sovereign public functionaries are entitled to be addressed with the applicable honorific, and whether omission of such honorific can be justified on grounds of personal familiarity or grievance.

Analysis: The order records compliance with the earlier direction and notes that the complaint forming the basis of the check FIR had been reproduced verbatim. It then states that an Hon'ble Member of Parliament is entitled to the honorific, along with other constitutional and statutory functionaries to whom protocol extends such address. The order further holds that personal disgruntlement or familiarity with the concerned family cannot justify omission of the honorific while referring to a functionary entitled to it.

Conclusion: The entitlement to the honorific was affirmed and the omission of the honorific was disapproved.

Issues: (i) Whether the impugned proceedings were barred under Section 6(2) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 due to prior action by State GST authorities; (ii) Whether the provisional attachment order was vitiated for want of pre-decisional hearing; (iii) Whether interference was warranted under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

Issue (i): Whether the impugned proceedings were barred under Section 6(2) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 due to prior action by State GST authorities.

Analysis: The plea of statutory bar was not supported by foundational material. No show-cause notice, adjudicatory step, or document demonstrating initiation of proceedings by the State authorities, identity of subject matter, or common tax period was placed on record. A jurisdictional objection of this nature cannot be examined in the abstract on bald averments alone.

Conclusion: The objection under Section 6(2) was rejected as premature and unsupported by material.

Issue (ii): Whether the provisional attachment order was vitiated for want of pre-decisional hearing.

Analysis: Section 83 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 does not expressly or by necessary implication provide for a pre-decisional hearing. The statutory scheme, as recognised in binding precedent, treats provisional attachment as a protective measure and provides a post-decisional mechanism under Rule 159(5) of the Central Goods and Service Tax Rules, 2017 for objections and hearing. The absence of prior notice, including during custody, therefore did not by itself invalidate the attachment.

Conclusion: The challenge based on absence of pre-decisional hearing was negatived.

Issue (iii): Whether interference was warranted under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: The allegations concerned fraudulent availment of input tax credit, fake invoices, fictitious entities, and circular trading, which involved disputed facts and revenue protection concerns. An effective statutory remedy was available under Rule 159(5) of the Central Goods and Service Tax Rules, 2017, and the writ court declined to intervene at the nascent stage. The matter was also connected with pending proceedings whose outcome was to govern the attachment.

Conclusion: No case for writ interference was made out.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the provisional attachment failed, but the affected person retained the statutory remedy against the attachment and the attachment was left to abide by the outcome of the connected proceedings.

Ratio Decidendi: Provisional attachment under Section 83 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 is a protective fiscal that does not require a pre-decisional hearing, and a jurisdictional bar under Section 6(2) must be established by cogent material showing prior initiation of identical proceedings by the other authority.

Issues: Whether the disallowance of the assessee society's loss and expenditure was justified and whether the appellate authorities were right in treating the activities and expenses as business-oriented rather than as expenditures incurred for the society's stated objects.

Analysis: The assessee society was registered under the societies law and its objects were to promote arts, music, dance and related cultural activities among children and youth. The Tribunal found that the mere absence of registration under section 12A or section 12AA did not by itself establish a profit motive. It further found that the revenue authorities had not brought any tangible material to show that the expenditure was bogus, sham, prohibited by law, capital in nature, or part of a make-believe arrangement designed to evade tax. The Tribunal noted that the books were not rejected under section 145(3), the vouchers and audit material were on record, and the payments to group concerns or in round figures did not by themselves prove excessiveness or lack of genuineness. The Tribunal also held that the society's earlier small surplus did not justify an adverse inference for the year under appeal.

Conclusion: The disallowance of the claimed loss was not sustainable and the assessee's appeal succeeded.

Final Conclusion: The loss claimed by the assessee society was held to be allowable on the facts and the orders of the lower authorities were set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Expenditure incurred for a society's lawful objects cannot be disallowed merely because it appears high or is paid to related concerns unless the revenue establishes with material evidence that the expenditure is bogus, sham, prohibited, capital in nature, or otherwise not genuine.

Issues: (i) whether the assessment framed under section 143(3) and the notice under section 143(2) were without jurisdiction for want of mandatory prior approval and in the context of the post-search reassessment scheme; (ii) whether additions based on third-party seized material and untested documents could be sustained in the absence of recorded satisfaction, corroboration, and opportunity of cross-examination; (iii) whether the additions on account of alleged suppressed sales, the related gross profit estimate, and the enhancement under section 69C could be sustained.

Issue (i): whether the assessment framed under section 143(3) and the notice under section 143(2) were without jurisdiction for want of mandatory prior approval and in the context of the post-search reassessment scheme.

Analysis: The assessment year fell within the search-related block covered by the new reassessment regime. The record did not satisfactorily establish contemporaneous prior administrative approval for the scrutiny notice, and the jurisdiction of the Central Circle was also questioned on the chronology of transfer. The Tribunal treated the absence of valid approval and the defective assumption of jurisdiction as going to the root of the assessment. It also held that section 292BB could not cure the foundational illegality in initiation of proceedings.

Conclusion: The assessment and the notice were held to be void and without jurisdiction, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): whether additions based on third-party seized material and untested documents could be sustained in the absence of recorded satisfaction, corroboration, and opportunity of cross-examination.

Analysis: The additions were founded on materials seized in another person's search and on loose papers treated as incriminating. The Tribunal held that the statutory safeguard requiring satisfaction with prior approval before relying on third-party material was not duly complied with. It further found that the assessee was denied effective confrontation of the adverse material, and that uncorroborated loose papers could not, by themselves, support the inference of undisclosed income. The Tribunal also observed that the presumption attached to seized papers was rebuttable and could not substitute for proof of linkage to the assessee.

Conclusion: The additions based on third-party material and dumb documents were not sustainable, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iii): whether the additions on account of alleged suppressed sales, the related gross profit estimate, and the enhancement under section 69C could be sustained.

Analysis: The Tribunal found that the alleged suppressed sales were not proved by independent and cogent evidence such as transport records, buyer-chain evidence, cash trail, production correlation, or corroborative market data. On that footing, the gross profit addition based on estimated unaccounted sales was deleted. The further enhancement under section 69C was also held to be unsustainable because the statutory condition of actual unexplained expenditure was not established and the computation was only a ratio-based inference. The Tribunal further held that once the alleged sales figure itself failed, the consequential application of section 115BBE could not survive.

Conclusion: The gross profit addition and the section 69C enhancement were deleted, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The impugned assessment could not be sustained either on jurisdictional grounds or on merits, and the assessee obtained complete relief while the Revenue's challenge failed.

Ratio Decidendi: In search-related income-tax proceedings, jurisdictional safeguards such as valid prior approval and recorded satisfaction are mandatory, and additions based solely on third-party seized materials or uncorroborated loose documents cannot be sustained without independent evidence and effective opportunity of cross-examination.

Issues: Whether disallowance under section 40(a)(ia) could be sustained in the assessment year where the impugned expenditure had been capitalised to work-in-progress and not claimed in the profit and loss account, and whether the Revenue could insist on a direct addition instead of adjustment to work-in-progress.

Analysis: The core pre-condition for disallowance under section 40(a)(ia) is that the expenditure must be claimed as a deduction in computing business income. Where an amount is not claimed in the profit and loss account and remains embedded in work-in-progress, there is no deduction in the relevant year to which the disallowance can attach. The accounting method, whether percentage completion or completed contract, does not by itself determine the issue; what matters is whether the expenditure has actually entered the computation of income for the year. The record also showed that substantial portions of the impugned expenditure were retained in closing work-in-progress and only a part was charged to the year, and the subsequent verification accepted this allocation. In such a situation, the proper course is adjustment of work-in-progress to the extent the expenditure is not allowable, rather than a direct addition to total income in the year.

Conclusion: The disallowance under section 40(a)(ia) was not warranted for the portion of expenditure not claimed in the year, and the direction to verify and adjust work-in-progress was sustained in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The Revenue's challenge failed because the impugned expenditure, to the extent it remained in work-in-progress, did not give rise to a disallowance in the year under appeal, and the order of the first appellate authority was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: Section 40(a)(ia) applies only to expenditure claimed in the computation of income for the relevant year, and where the amount is capitalised to work-in-progress, the correct treatment is adjustment of work-in-progress rather than a direct addition to income.

Issues: (i) Whether the provisional attachment of the appellant's properties could be sustained once he was found to be only an abettor and not the beneficial owner, in the absence of a specific finding that the attached properties themselves were benami properties. (ii) Whether the finding that the underlying transaction was benami and that the appellant had acted as an abettor justified continued attachment of his properties.

Issue (i): Whether the provisional attachment of the appellant's properties could be sustained once he was found to be only an abettor and not the beneficial owner, in the absence of a specific finding that the attached properties themselves were benami properties.

Analysis: The appeal turned on the nature of the property sought to be attached. The Act contemplates attachment of benami property, whether in the hands of the benamidar or the beneficial owner. A mere finding that a person facilitated the transaction as an abettor does not, by itself, authorise attachment of his independent assets unless those assets are shown to be benami property. The impugned order continued attachment of the appellant's holdings without recording such a specific finding.

Conclusion: The attachment of the appellant's properties could not be sustained and was liable to be set aside in his favour.

Issue (ii): Whether the finding that the underlying transaction was benami and that the appellant had acted as an abettor justified continued attachment of his properties.

Analysis: The order recorded that the currency was deposited in the benamidar's account and transferred onward on the false pretext of bullion sales, and that the appellant had facilitated the arrangement. That finding supported the characterisation of the transaction as benami and the appellant's role as abettor. However, that conclusion attracted the statutory consequences applicable to abetment and did not cure the absence of proof that the appellant's own properties were benami.

Conclusion: The benami nature of the transaction and the appellant's role as abettor were not disturbed, but they did not justify attachment of his properties.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded because the attachment provision could not be applied to the appellant's assets without proof that those assets were benami property, even though the finding of abetment remained operative for the purposes of the Act.

Ratio Decidendi: Under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, provisional attachment is confined to property proved to be benami, and it cannot be extended to an abettor's independent assets solely on the basis of his participation in the transaction.

Issues: (i) Whether the adjudication proceedings and impugned order were vitiated by delay, want of effective opportunity, or breach of the principles of natural justice, including denial of cross-examination; (ii) Whether an authorised person could be proceeded against under the penalty provision of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 for contraventions involving dealings with unauthorised persons and failure to comply with the regulatory requirements; (iii) Whether the individual appellant could be fastened with liability under section 42(1) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 and as a de facto declarant for the alleged contravention under section 10(6) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999; (iv) Whether the penalty imposed on the company was sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the adjudication proceedings and impugned order were vitiated by delay, want of effective opportunity, or breach of the principles of natural justice, including denial of cross-examination?

Analysis: The proceedings were preceded by investigation, issuance of notice, supply of relied-upon documents, invitation of replies, and grant of personal hearing. The plea of inordinate delay was rejected because the record showed sustained investigation and repeated correspondence, and the alleged lapse did not establish any prejudice. On the request for cross-examination, the Tribunal applied the settled principle that such opportunity is not automatic in adjudication proceedings and is required only where prejudice is shown. Since the material relied upon was already disclosed and the appellants did not demonstrate any specific prejudice or loss of a substantive defence, the denial of cross-examination was held not to vitiate the proceedings.

Conclusion: The challenge based on delay and natural justice failed.

Issue (ii): Whether an authorised person could be proceeded against under the penalty provision of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 for contraventions involving dealings with unauthorised persons and failure to comply with the regulatory requirements?

Analysis: The Tribunal held that the definition of "person" under the Act is broad enough to include an authorised person and that Chapter III does not exclude the applicability of the general penalty provision. It further held that the Reserve Bank of India's power to regulate authorised persons does not bar adjudication by the Enforcement Directorate where contraventions of the Act, rules, regulations, or authorisation conditions are alleged. The Tribunal also held that contraventions under section 3(a) and sections 10(4) and 10(5) were not mutually exclusive on the facts and could be invoked where the authorised person had dealt with unauthorised remitters and issued forex cards without verifying the actual travellers.

Conclusion: The objection to the company's liability as an authorised person was rejected.

Issue (iii): Whether the individual appellant could be fastened with liability under section 42(1) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 and as a de facto declarant for the alleged contravention under section 10(6) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999?

Analysis: The Tribunal found that the individual appellant was not shown to be in charge of the relevant regional operations during the period when the impugned transactions took place. The record instead showed that he was transferred to the relevant role only later. In those circumstances, the vicarious liability imposed under section 42(1) could not stand. The Tribunal further held that treating him as a de facto declarant under section 10(6) was unsustainable because the provision could not be stretched to substitute him for the actual passengers or declarants, especially when he was not responsible for the relevant transactions during the material period.

Conclusion: Liability of the individual appellant was not sustainable.

Issue (iv): Whether the penalty imposed on the company was sustainable?

Analysis: The Tribunal found repeated and large-scale issuance of forex prepaid cards in the names of persons who had not approached the company, receipt of funds from third parties and unauthorised entities, and failure to observe the required due diligence and KYC norms. The Tribunal treated these facts as serious contraventions causing loss of foreign exchange and held that the penalty imposed on the company was proportionate to the contravention amount and warranted on the record.

Conclusion: The penalty on the company was upheld.

Final Conclusion: The appeal of the company failed, while the appeal of the individual appellant succeeded, resulting in retention of the company's penalty and deletion of the individual appellant's liability.

Ratio Decidendi: An authorised person remains amenable to adjudication and penalty under the Act for contraventions involving dealings with unauthorised persons and non-compliance with regulatory safeguards, but vicarious or declaratory liability cannot be imposed on an individual unless his responsibility for the relevant transactions during the material period is established.

Issues: (i) Whether the rectification order passed under the Income-tax Act, 1961, withdrawing the claimed exemption and reducing the refund without prior notice and hearing was sustainable in law. (ii) Whether coercive recovery steps could continue during the pendency of the appeal against the rectification order.

Issue (i): Whether the rectification order passed under the Income-tax Act, 1961, withdrawing the claimed exemption and reducing the refund without prior notice and hearing was sustainable in law.

Analysis: The refund was originally processed on a nil return, but the later rectification order altered the tax consequence by withdrawing the exemption and converting the refund situation into a demand. The proviso to section 154(3) requires notice and an opportunity of hearing before a rectification that enhances assessment or reduces refund. Since no such notice was issued, the action was held to be contrary to natural justice and the rectification was treated as prima facie unsustainable.

Conclusion: The rectification order was held to be unsustainable for breach of the mandatory notice and hearing requirement.

Issue (ii): Whether coercive recovery steps could continue during the pendency of the appeal against the rectification order.

Analysis: The appeal against the rectification order was already pending and written submissions had been filed. The Court treated the matter as a high-pitched assessment because a nil return with refund had been converted into a demand. In that situation, recovery was considered inappropriate until the appellate authority decided the matter by a reasoned order.

Conclusion: Coercive recovery was restrained until disposal of the pending appeal.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition was disposed of by directing expeditious disposal of the pending appeal and by protecting the petitioner from recovery action until the appellate process reached finality, without entering into the merits of the exemption claim.

Ratio Decidendi: A rectification that enhances assessment or reduces refund cannot be sustained without prior notice and hearing, and recovery in a high-pitched tax dispute should ordinarily remain in abeyance while a bona fide appeal is pending.

Issues: Whether interest under section 234C of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was leviable for the first and second instalments of advance tax where the assessee's business commenced only on 17.10.2019 and no business income existed before that date.

Analysis: Section 234C provides for interest on deferment of advance tax, but its proviso carves out an exception where the shortfall arises because income under the head "Profits and gains of business or profession" could not be estimated and such income arises for the first time during the year. Section 3, by its proviso, treats the previous year of a newly set-up business as commencing from the date of setting up. On the admitted facts, the assessee's business began only upon approval in October 2019, and there was no business activity or source of income before that date. In such a situation, there was no occasion to estimate business income for the June and September instalments, and the statutory exception applied.

Conclusion: Interest under section 234C for the instalments falling due before the commencement of business was not sustainable, and the assessee was entitled to recomputation excluding those instalments.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a business is newly set up during the financial year, advance tax interest under section 234C cannot be levied for instalments falling due before commencement if the relevant business income had not yet arisen and could not reasonably have been estimated.

Issues: Whether the reassessment notice and consequential assessment order were invalid for non-compliance with the time limit and approval requirements under the reassessment provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: The notice under section 148 was issued under the new reassessment regime after the relevant assessment year. The Tribunal found that the escaped income did not exceed the threshold attracting the extended limitation, and that the notice and the order under section 148A(d) and section 148 required prior approval from the competent authority under section 151. Since the statutory conditions governing limitation and sanction were not satisfied, the reassessment proceedings were held to be jurisdictionally defective. Once the reassessment itself was invalid, the consequential assessment could not survive.

Conclusion: The reassessment notice and the assessment order were quashed as bad in law, and the reopening was held invalid.

Issues: (i) whether, in an abated assessment under section 153A, the assessee could raise a fresh claim and whether lease rental from an Industrial Park/SEZ IT park was taxable under the head business income; (ii) whether the disallowance under section 14A read with Rule 8D could be restricted to exempt income and whether any adjustment could be made under section 115JB; and (iii) whether notional annual letting value could be added in respect of unsold flats or units held as stock-in-trade.

Issue (i): whether, in an abated assessment under section 153A, the assessee could raise a fresh claim and whether lease rental from an Industrial Park/SEZ IT park was taxable under the head business income.

Analysis: Once the search caused the pending assessments to abate, the return filed in response to section 153A replaced the earlier return and the assessment became a fresh assessment on the open record. In such a situation, the assessee was entitled to make a claim different from the original return. On merits, the income from letting out premises in an Industrial Park/SEZ, as clarified by the CBDT circular and supported by the settled line of decisions, was to be assessed as business income and not as income from house property.

Conclusion: The assessee could raise the fresh claim, and the lease rental income was assessable under the head business income, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): whether the disallowance under section 14A read with Rule 8D could be restricted to exempt income and whether any adjustment could be made under section 115JB.

Analysis: The disallowance under the normal provisions could not exceed the exempt income earned during the year. For computation under section 115JB, the mechanism of section 14A could not be imported to enlarge book-profit adjustments, though direct expenditure relatable to exempt income could still be considered in accordance with the relevant explanation.

Conclusion: The disallowance was confined as directed by the first appellate authority, and the Revenue's challenge failed, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iii): whether notional annual letting value could be added in respect of unsold flats or units held as stock-in-trade.

Analysis: For the years involved, the statutory amendment inserting section 23(5) with effect from assessment year 2018-19 did not govern the assessment years in dispute. In the absence of an applicable charging basis for a notional ALV on unsold stock-in-trade for the relevant years, the addition on estimate basis could not be sustained.

Conclusion: The addition on account of deemed annual letting value was deleted, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The Revenue's appeals failed on the substantive issues, the assessee obtained relief on the notional ALV issue, and the connected cross objections were allowed.

Ratio Decidendi: In an abated section 153A assessment, the return filed in response to the notice substitutes the original return and permits fresh claims, while lease rentals from notified Industrial Park/SEZ premises are taxable as business income; further, pre-2018 notional annual letting value cannot be added to unsold stock-in-trade without a specific charging provision.

Issues: Whether the reassessment initiated under section 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was valid when the recorded reasons were based on general third-party information without specific linkage to the assessee's transactions.

Analysis: The reopening was founded on information from the Investigation Wing and the Insight Portal regarding alleged accommodation entries by certain entry operators. However, the recorded reasons did not identify any specific transaction, entry, bank trail, or direct documentary nexus showing that the assessee had actually received the alleged accommodation entry amount. Mere reference to the assessee as a possible beneficiary, without independent application of mind to the assessee's own material and without prima facie linkage between the information and the escapement belief, was held insufficient to satisfy the statutory requirement for reassessment jurisdiction.

Conclusion: The reassessment was invalid and the challenge to the reopening succeeded in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Reassessment under section 147 cannot be sustained on borrowed information alone unless the recorded reasons disclose specific, tangible material establishing a live nexus between the material relied upon and the assessee's alleged escapement of income.

Issues: Whether penalty under section 271D of the Income-tax Act, 1961 could be sustained when the Assessing Officer had not recorded satisfaction in the assessment order or any other assessment proceeding for the alleged contravention of section 269SS.

Analysis: The Tribunal treated the additional ground as purely legal and admissible because it went to the root of the matter and required no fresh factual inquiry. On merits, it noted that the assessment order under section 143(3) did not record any satisfaction for initiation of penalty proceedings. The penalty was initiated by the Joint Commissioner after the assessment, but the Tribunal held that, for penalty under section 271D, the absence of recorded satisfaction in the assessment proceedings was fatal. Relying on binding jurisdictional and Supreme Court authority, the Tribunal followed the view that sections 271D and 271E are pari materia and that recorded satisfaction in the original assessment order is a mandatory condition for valid initiation of such penalty proceedings.

Conclusion: Penalty under section 271D was not sustainable in the absence of recorded satisfaction in the assessment order, and the assessee succeeded on the issue.

Issues: Whether the immovable properties attached in lieu of the alleged benami amount could be sustained in the absence of proof that those properties were acquired from, or were traceable to, the benami amount or its proceeds.

Analysis: The operative definition of property under the Benami law covers assets in any form and also their converted form and proceeds. For sustaining attachment of other assets in lieu of the alleged benami amount, it was necessary to establish a clear link between the amount said to be benami and the particular immovable properties attached, or to show that the amount had been merged in assets that were not separately demarcable. On the material before it, there was no evidence connecting the two immovable properties with the alleged amount of Rs. 5,00,000 or any part thereof. In the absence of such nexus, the principle relied upon for tracing business receipts could not justify continuation of the attachment.

Conclusion: The attachment of the immovable properties was rightly released, and the challenge to that part of the order failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Substitute attachment under the Benami law cannot be sustained unless the attached assets are shown to have a proved nexus with the benami amount or its identifiable proceeds.

Issues: (i) Whether the order rejecting the application to place additional documents on record suffered from an error apparent on the face of the record; (ii) whether the final order in the appeal required recall as a consequential result.

Issue (i): Whether the order rejecting the application to place additional documents on record suffered from an error apparent on the face of the record.

Analysis: Rule 23 of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1982 permits additional evidence where the Tribunal is of opinion that the documents are needed to enable it to pass orders or for sufficient cause, and also where the interests of justice require production of such evidence. The rejection order had proceeded on the premise that the documents were not filed earlier and no sufficient explanation was given, but it did not apply the governing test under Rule 23. The materials sought to be produced were relevant to the appellant's claim regarding ownership of the gold bars and were capable of assisting the Tribunal in deciding the appeal.

Conclusion: The rejection order suffered from an error apparent on the face of the record and was liable to be recalled.

Issue (ii): Whether the final order in the appeal required recall as a consequential result.

Analysis: Once the order refusing additional evidence was recalled, the final order passed in the appeal could not stand because the additional documents now had to be examined before the appeal could be decided afresh. The power to rectify a mistake apparent from the record under section 129B(2) of the Customs Act, 1962 extended to recalling the final order where the earlier procedural error had affected the disposal of the appeal.

Conclusion: The final order was also liable to be recalled.

Final Conclusion: The rectification application succeeded, the rejection of additional evidence was set aside, the final order was recalled, and the appeal was restored for fresh hearing before the regular bench.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a Tribunal fails to apply the correct test governing additional evidence and that omission affects the disposal of the appeal, the resulting mistake is rectifiable as a mistake apparent from the record, and the consequential final order may also be recalled.

Issues: (i) Whether the provisional attachment of the petitioner's bank accounts had ceased to operate on expiry of the statutory period under Section 83(2) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017; (ii) Whether cash credit facilities could be subjected to provisional attachment.

Issue (i): Whether the provisional attachment of the petitioner's bank accounts had ceased to operate on expiry of the statutory period under Section 83(2) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Analysis: The attachment was challenged as having been issued under the GST framework and having continued beyond the permissible statutory period. The respondents did not dispute that the one-year period contemplated by Section 83(2) had expired. On that basis, the Court held that by operation of law the attachment had ceased to have effect and the freezing of the petitioner's operational bank accounts had also lapsed.

Conclusion: The provisional attachment had lapsed and the petitioner's operational bank accounts were from the restraint.

Issue (ii): Whether cash credit facilities could be subjected to provisional attachment.

Analysis: The Court further noted the settled position that cash credit facilities are not amenable to provisional attachment. Applying that principle, it held that the restraint on the cash credit accounts could not survive.

Conclusion: Cash credit facilities could not be validly provisionally attached.

Final Conclusion: The petition succeeded to the extent that the impugned bank account attachments were held to have ceased and the petitioner was entitled to operate the affected accounts.

Ratio Decidendi: A provisional attachment under the GST law cannot continue beyond the statutory period prescribed by Section 83(2), and cash credit facilities are not susceptible to provisional attachment.

Issues: Whether payments made to a non-resident for leased circuit or internet-related facilities constituted royalty so as to attract deduction of tax at source under Section 195 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and consequent disallowance under the Act.

Analysis: The payment was examined in the light of Section 9(1)(vi) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, together with the Explanations inserted by the Finance Act, 2012. The governing principle applied was that the later explanations could not be given retrospective operation so as to enlarge the scope of royalty for earlier assessment years. The Court followed the binding view that such payments for facility use by a non-resident, in the absence of the relevant taxable nexus, do not by themselves become royalty merely because the recipient is outside India.

Conclusion: The payment did not constitute royalty for the relevant assessment year and no tax deduction obligation arose on that basis; the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether cash handed over for deposit in a third party account, followed by retransfer through banking channels, constituted benami property and a benami transaction under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, so as to justify attachment of the bank balance.

Analysis: The Tribunal held that cash falls within the wide definition of property under the Act and can constitute consideration for purposes of a benami arrangement. It found that the cash was handed over by the beneficial owner to the proprietor of the concern, who deposited it in his account and thereafter returned the amount to the appellant through banking channels. On that reasoning, the proprietor was treated as a benamidar who lent his name, and the transaction was held to satisfy both elements of the statutory definition of benami transaction, namely transfer or holding of property for another's benefit and provision of consideration by another person. The Tribunal distinguished the authorities relied upon by the appellant and rejected the submission that the transaction was merely sham and outside the Act.

Conclusion: The transaction was held to be benami, and the attachment was upheld in principle, though the quantum was modified.

Outcome: Delay condoned. The Special Leave Petition was dismissed and the pending application(s) stood disposed of.