Issues: (i) Whether the appellant's helicopter charter operations were classifiable as Supply of Tangible Goods for Use or transport of passengers by air service; (ii) Whether charter services performed wholly in Jammu & Kashmir were outside the service-tax jurisdiction; (iii) Whether foreign-currency expenditure constituted taxable import of Management, Maintenance or Repair service under reverse charge; (iv) Whether CENVAT credit could be denied without examination of the supporting invoices and documents; (v) Whether invocation of the extended period of limitation was sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the appellant's helicopter charter operations were classifiable as Supply of Tangible Goods for Use or transport of passengers by air service.

Analysis: The charter agreements showed that the aircraft and helicopters were supplied on wet lease with crew, maintenance and operational control remaining with the appellant, while possession and effective control were not transferred to the charterers. Such charter hire falls within the statutory description of Supply of Tangible Goods for Use. However, the operational receipts also included income from distinct services which had been disclosed and taxed under their respective service categories. The entire turnover could not mechanically be classified as Supply of Tangible Goods for Use.

Conclusion: Helicopter charter-hire receipts attributable to Supply of Tangible Goods for Use are taxable under that category, against the assessee; receipts from other distinct services cannot be included in that demand, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether charter services performed wholly in Jammu & Kashmir were outside the service-tax jurisdiction.

Analysis: The services relating to the Amarnath Yatra were performed in Jammu & Kashmir, with embarkation and disembarkation occurring within that territory. The location of the service provider or recipient in Delhi did not determine taxability where the taxable activity was performed in a territory excluded from the territorial operation of the Finance Act, 1994.

Conclusion: The demand relating to services performed in Jammu & Kashmir is not taxable and is set aside, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether foreign-currency expenditure constituted taxable import of Management, Maintenance or Repair service under reverse charge.

Analysis: The foreign-currency payments covered dry-lease rentals, security deposits, interest, purchase of spare parts, training, and repairs. The dry-lease agreement, read as a whole, did not establish receipt of an independent Management, Maintenance or Repair service from the foreign lessor. Payments for spare parts were for goods and could not be treated as consideration for services. Repairs of goods performed outside India had their place of provision outside India and were not taxable in India.

Conclusion: The reverse-charge demand for Management, Maintenance or Repair service is unsustainable and is set aside, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iv): Whether CENVAT credit could be denied without examination of the supporting invoices and documents.

Analysis: The appellant had furnished invoices and supporting documents with its reply to the show-cause notice. The denial neither identified a particular deficiency nor addressed the evidence and submissions. A quasi-judicial determination affecting credit entitlement must contain reasons and an examination of the relevant material.

Conclusion: The denial of CENVAT credit is set aside and remanded for fresh consideration, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (v): Whether invocation of the extended period of limitation was sustainable.

Analysis: The appellant had regularly furnished returns, financial records, agreements, reconciliations, foreign-exchange details and other material to the Department. The classification controversy and disclosures were relevant to whether there was wilful suppression with intent to evade tax. Since the original adjudication did not undertake the required factual examination, the limitation issue required reconsideration.

Conclusion: The issue of extended limitation is remanded for fresh determination; no final finding is made on its applicability.

Final Conclusion: Tax liability survives only for properly identified charter-hire receipts falling within Supply of Tangible Goods for Use, subject to fresh adjudication on limitation, while the Jammu & Kashmir and reverse-charge components do not survive and the credit issue requires reconsideration.

Issues: Whether, in a search assessment under section 153A for unabated assessment years, the Assessing Officer may disallow deduction under section 80-IA(4) by revisiting the assessee's status as developer or works contractor without any incriminating material found in the search.

Analysis: Search assessments distinguish between abated and unabated assessments. For concluded, unabated years, an existing assessment may be disturbed only on the basis of incriminating material unearthed during the search. The retrospective statutory amendment to section 80-IA(13) did not independently permit revision of the concluded assessments where no material relating to the deduction was found.

Conclusion: The disallowance of deduction under section 80-IA(4) in the unabated years without incriminating search material was impermissible, in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether confirmation of the provisional attachment of the appellant's property was justified.

Analysis: The appellant received Rs. 1.25 crore through banking channels from an entity implicated in wrongful gains arising from the supply contract. The claimed explanations that the amount represented salary or a loan were unsupported: no appointment document established employment or salary entitlement, and no loan document or repayment evidence established a genuine loan transaction. The receipt was therefore treated as proceeds of crime, warranting attachment of the identified property.

Conclusion: Confirmation of the provisional attachment was justified; the issue is against the appellant.

Issues: Whether payment for water drawn and consumed under an agreement with the State Government constitutes consideration for assignment of the right to use a natural resource, taxable under the reverse charge mechanism, or consideration for sale of water.

Analysis: The consideration was paid for the quantity of water actually consumed, and the fact that the recipient drew and conveyed the water to its plant did not alter the transaction's character. The agreement was therefore a sale of water, not an assignment of a right to use a natural resource. This view was consistent with prior decisions on identical transactions and with an earlier order for the same assessee that had been accepted on merits.

Conclusion: No service tax was payable under the reverse charge mechanism on the water purchased from the State Government; the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: (i) Whether profit on bank receipts from recharge vouchers and wafers business should be estimated at 30% or on a commission basis; (ii) Whether penalty for non-maintenance of books was sustainable where the receipts represented agency transactions rather than the assessee's turnover.

Issue (i): Whether profit on bank receipts from recharge vouchers and wafers business should be estimated at 30% or on a commission basis.

Analysis: The material established that the assessee dealt in recharge vouchers and wafers as an agent of the respective principals and was contractually entitled to a limited commission. The 30% profit estimate on the entire bank credits was excessive and inconsistent with the principal-agent arrangement.

Conclusion: In favour of the assessee. Income from gross receipts of Rs. 1,58,13,670 was directed to be computed by applying a commission rate of 5%, resulting in commission income of Rs. 7,90,683.

Issue (ii): Whether penalty for non-maintenance of books was sustainable where the receipts represented agency transactions rather than the assessee's turnover.

Analysis: As the bank receipts related to agency business, ownership in the goods did not vest in the assessee and such receipts could not be treated as its turnover. Further, no turnover in the three immediately preceding years was established.

Conclusion: In favour of the assessee. The penalty of Rs. 25,000 for non-maintenance of books of account was directed to be deleted.

Final Conclusion: The taxable receipts were confined to a reasonable commission component, and the penalty founded on treating agency receipts as turnover could not stand.

Ratio Decidendi: Where bank receipts arise from a principal-agent arrangement and ownership in goods remains with the principal, the agent's income is to be assessed on a reasonable commission basis rather than as profit on the entire receipts; such agency receipts do not by themselves constitute the agent's turnover for book-maintenance penalty purposes.

Issues: (i) Whether exemption under Section 54 was available for the basement, ground floor and third floor forming part of the same residential property; (ii) Whether the fair market value and cost of construction used for computing long-term capital gains could be substituted by the Assessing Officer without rebutting the registered valuers' reports or obtaining a valuation report from the Departmental Valuation Officer.

Issue (i): Whether exemption under Section 54 was available for the basement, ground floor and third floor forming part of the same residential property.

Analysis: Section 54 requires acquisition or construction of one residential house and does not prescribe a particular physical manner of construction. Multiple floors or independently usable units in the same building may constitute one residential house where they are acquired as one property through investment of capital gains. Separate prospective use or structural division of floors does not by itself establish acquisition of multiple residential houses.

Conclusion: Exemption under Section 54 was available for all the floors constituting the assessee's single residential property, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the fair market value and cost of construction used for computing long-term capital gains could be substituted by the Assessing Officer without rebutting the registered valuers' reports or obtaining a valuation report from the Departmental Valuation Officer.

Analysis: The later registered valuer's report on the land value was placed on record but was left unaddressed. The Assessing Officer rejected the registered valuers' reports without identifying any specific defect and adopted an ad hoc land value derived from government rates, despite the absence of a reference to the Departmental Valuation Officer. The builder's certificate regarding construction cost was material evidence for computing consideration and capital gains.

Conclusion: The land cost was required to be adopted in accordance with the unrebutted valuation report dated 06.09.2022, and the capital-gains computation was required to be made using the builder's construction-cost certificate, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The capital-gains computation must be revised by allowing the residential-house reinvestment relief and by adopting the substantiated valuation and construction figures.

Ratio Decidendi: Multiple floors forming part of one residential property do not lose eligibility as one residential house merely because they are separately structured or independently usable; a registered valuer's report cannot be displaced by an unsupported assessment estimate without identifying defects or obtaining expert valuation.

Issues: (i) Whether State GST officers are authorised as proper officers to exercise powers under the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 without a further Central Government notification; (ii) Whether an appeal lies against confiscation orders passed by State GST officers while exercising powers under the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Issue (i): Whether State GST officers are authorised as proper officers to exercise powers under the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 without a further Central Government notification.

Analysis: Section 4 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 itself authorises officers appointed under State GST or Union Territory GST law as proper officers for that Act. The notification contemplated by that provision concerns exceptions or conditions, not the creation of the basic authorisation. The State Commissioner's order specifying and delegating functions to proper officers under the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 validly enabled the concerned State officers to undertake enforcement functions. The refund-specific notification did not imply that a further notification was indispensable for detention or confiscation powers.

Conclusion: State GST officers were validly empowered as proper officers to exercise the relevant powers under the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017; no further notification was required. This issue is against the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether an appeal lies against confiscation orders passed by State GST officers while exercising powers under the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Analysis: By virtue of the cross-empowerment under Sections 4 and 20 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, an order made by a State proper officer attracts the appellate mechanism under the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. Section 6(3) of that Act only excludes an appeal before an officer appointed under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017; it does not bar an appeal before the State appellate authority under Section 107 of the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. An efficacious statutory appellate remedy was therefore available.

Conclusion: An appeal lies before the State appellate authority under Section 107 of the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. This issue is against the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The statutory cross-empowerment and State appellate mechanism govern the challenged enforcement orders, leaving no basis for writ intervention.

Ratio Decidendi: Section 4 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 independently cross-empowers State GST officers as proper officers, subject only to notified exceptions or conditions, and orders made by such officers are appealable through the State GST appellate framework.

Issues: Whether the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal could recall its detailed appellate order under its rectification power on the ground that relevant facts and merits required reconsideration.

Analysis: The rectification power is confined to correcting a mistake apparent from the record and is akin to the limited review jurisdiction under Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. The original appellate order had decided the validity of reassessment after detailed consideration of the factual record and statutory requirements. The Revenue's miscellaneous applications sought reconsideration of those merits on the basis that the Tribunal had not properly considered material concerning revision proceedings. Such reconsideration neither identified an apparent mistake nor remained within the confined rectification jurisdiction; an alleged error on merits could be challenged through a tax appeal.

Conclusion: The Tribunal could not recall its reasoned appellate order under Section 254(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 for a re-adjudication on merits; the recall orders were invalid and the original appellate order stood restored.

Issues: Whether an advance-ruling application on classification of roasted areca nuts is admissible where the identical question has already been decided by a High Court.

Analysis: Section 28-I(2) bars admission of an application where the question is the same as one already decided by the Appellate Tribunal or a Court. The classification question was squarely covered by an existing High Court decision. As a statutory authority subordinate to judicial precedent, the Authority could not re-adjudicate the settled question or issue a conflicting ruling.

Conclusion: The application was not admissible and no ruling on the classification question could be pronounced.

Issues: Whether delayed payment charges recovered by a stockbroker from clients for delayed settlement obligations or margin trading facility are taxable as consideration for agreeing to tolerate an act under Section 66E(e).

Analysis: Delayed payment charges arise only upon default in timely payment, after the stockbroker has discharged settlement obligations to the exchange. They are penal and compensatory charges for overdue amounts, not charges for stockbroking services or a separately agreed activity of tolerating delayed payment. The contractual penal clauses safeguard commercial interests and do not establish that the parties intended delay as the object of the arrangement. Departmental circulars under the service-tax and GST regimes also recognise that delayed payment charges are not consideration for taxable services.

Conclusion: Delayed payment charges are not taxable as a declared service under Section 66E(e); the issue is decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether a second show cause notice and consequential demand order concerning the same alleged wrongful availment of input tax credit from seven common suppliers could be sustained.

Analysis: The facts established that two proceedings covered the same alleged transactions involving seven common suppliers, and separate demand orders were passed on the same day. Multiple proceedings seeking to impose tax liability again on the same transactions were impermissible and contravened Section 6(2)(b) of the GST Act, 2017.

Conclusion: The second show cause notice and consequential order were quashed insofar as they concerned the seven common suppliers, in favour of the assessee. The proceedings relating to the remaining two suppliers survived, with liberty to pursue the statutory appeal.

Issues: Whether a show cause notice proposing cancellation of GST registration is valid when it merely cites Rule 21(b), (e) and (g) without disclosing the factual basis of the alleged violations.

Analysis: The notice did not specify the facts or manner constituting the alleged contraventions. A notice issued mechanically, without particulars of the proposed action, prevents the registered person from furnishing an effective reply and causes prejudice. Such absence of material particulars denies a meaningful opportunity of hearing and is inconsistent with principles of natural justice.

Conclusion: A show cause notice lacking the factual basis for alleged violations under Rule 21 is invalid; the authorities may initiate fresh proceedings through a notice containing the requisite particulars.

Issues: Whether Minimum Alternate Tax under Section 115JB applies to a statutory corporation constituted under a Central enactment but not incorporated as a company under the Companies Act, including after the amendment effective from 01.04.2013.

Analysis: Although the assessee is treated as an Indian company under the Income-tax Act, 1961, it is not a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013. The machinery for computation of book profit under Section 115JB is inapplicable where the statutory corporation is governed by its own enactment and does not prepare accounts in the manner contemplated for companies under the Companies Act. The amended Section 115JB(2)(b) does not alter this position. The binding precedent concerning an analogous statutory board was applied.

Conclusion: Section 115JB of the Income-tax Act, 1961 does not apply to the assessee; the issue is decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether the Tribunal's quashing of reassessment and deletion of the addition for alleged unexplained cash credit gave rise to a substantial question of law.

Analysis: The recorded basis for reopening alleged entries involving long-term capital gain, short-term capital loss or business loss exceeding the monetary threshold. The assessee's transaction was, however, an intraday share-trading transaction yielding business profit of Rs. 49,792, which had been offered to tax, and did not contain any of the alleged entry characteristics. The Tribunal therefore found that the basis for reopening failed. The High Court found these to be factual findings and, having regard also to the small amount involved, found no substantial question of law warranting interference.

Conclusion: The reassessment was unsustainable and no substantial question of law arose from the Tribunal's decision; the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issues: (i) Whether interest expenditure attributable to capital work in progress was liable to be capitalised where the assessee had sufficient interest-free funds and the building was already put to use; (ii) Whether disallowance computed under section 14A read with rule 8D could be added to book profit under section 115JB.

Issue (i): Whether interest expenditure attributable to capital work in progress was liable to be capitalised where the assessee had sufficient interest-free funds and the building was already put to use.

Analysis: The factual finding that interest-free funds exceeded the investments attracted the presumption that the investments were made from such funds. The expenditure also related to an existing building already put to use in earlier years; consequently, there was no basis to capitalise the interest expenditure.

Conclusion: The disallowance of interest expenditure was not sustainable. This issue was decided in favour of the assessee and against the Revenue.

Issue (ii): Whether disallowance computed under section 14A read with rule 8D could be added to book profit under section 115JB.

Analysis: Binding jurisdictional decisions established that an adjustment to book profit cannot be founded on the disallowance calculated under section 14A read with rule 8D. The concurrent findings of the appellate authorities deleting the corresponding book-profit adjustment were therefore upheld.

Conclusion: The section 14A disallowance computed under rule 8D could not be added to book profit under section 115JB. This issue was decided in favour of the assessee and against the Revenue.

Final Conclusion: Neither proposed question gave rise to a substantial question of law.

Ratio Decidendi: Where interest-free funds sufficient to cover the investments are available, investments are presumed to be made from those funds; further, a disallowance quantified under section 14A read with rule 8D cannot by itself be used to increase book profit under section 115JB.

Issues: Whether the challenges to the show-cause notices and the assessment order required adjudication in writ jurisdiction.

Outcome: The petitions were disposed of, leaving the petitioners to pursue the statutory appellate remedy against any final assessment order.

Issues: Whether penalty under section 271(1)(c) was leviable on an addition for alleged bogus purchases ultimately sustained on an ad hoc and estimated basis.

Analysis: The quantum addition was successively reduced from 25% of the alleged bogus purchases to 12.50% and finally to 6%, demonstrating that the sustained addition was estimated. Coordinate Bench decisions on materially identical facts had applied the settled principle that penalty for concealment or furnishing inaccurate particulars is not exigible merely on an ad hoc or estimated addition. No distinguishing factual feature or contrary subsequent authority was shown. Judicial discipline and consistency required adoption of that view.

Conclusion: Penalty under section 271(1)(c) was not leviable on the estimated addition; the penalty was deleted in favour of the assessee.

Issues: (i) Whether an integrated industrial shrimp-feed manufacturing plant is classifiable under CTH 8436 10 00 or CTH 8438 80 90, with consequential CVD liability; (ii) Whether rejection of the appeal as time-barred was sustainable without determining the status and finalisation of provisional assessments.

Issue (i): Whether an integrated industrial shrimp-feed manufacturing plant is classifiable under CTH 8436 10 00 or CTH 8438 80 90, with consequential CVD liability.

Analysis: Heading 8436, read contextually with its HSN Explanatory Notes, covers farm-level and allied husbandry machinery for preparing animal feed but excludes machinery clearly designed for industrial use. Heading 8438 applies to machinery for industrial preparation or manufacture of food, including food for animal consumption. The imported goods constituted an integrated, automated commercial production plant with mixing, conditioning, pelletising, cooling and conveying systems, intended for continuous large-scale manufacture of shrimp feed. HSN Notes were used as an interpretative aid to ascertain the scope of the competing tariff headings, not to override the tariff. The project-import approval did not determine the tariff classification.

Conclusion: The machinery is classifiable under CTH 8438 80 90, not CTH 8436 10 00; the reassessment and consequential CVD levy are valid, against the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether rejection of the appeal as time-barred was sustainable without determining the status and finalisation of provisional assessments.

Analysis: The communication treated as the starting point for limitation neither finalised the assessments nor determined classification or differential duty. Where the Bills of Entry were treated as provisionally assessed, the foundational questions of finalisation under Section 18, the character of the communication as an appealable order, the requirement of a speaking order on disputed reassessment, the date from which limitation commenced, and the status of project-import finalisation required determination. The computation of delay was also unsupported by recorded particulars.

Conclusion: The time-bar rejection cannot be sustained; the matter must be reconsidered by the Commissioner (Appeals) on maintainability, provisional assessment, finalisation, limitation and merits, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The classification and CVD demand remain upheld, while the separate limitation dispute is restored for fresh appellate determination.

Ratio Decidendi: Machinery forming an integrated industrial plant for large-scale commercial manufacture of animal feed falls under the tariff heading for industrial food-manufacturing machinery where the farm-feed machinery heading excludes industrial-use machinery; limitation cannot be invoked against a provisional assessment without determining whether a legally appealable final assessment or order exists.

Issues: (i) Whether registered secured creditors' dues take priority over State tax dues and statutory charges; (ii) Whether State attachment orders issued before enforcement of the secured-creditor priority provisions can defeat that priority without a lawful public proclamation and consequential recovery steps; (iii) Whether an auction purchaser of a secured asset may be subjected to a State boja/encumbrance after completion of the secured sale.

Issue (i): Whether registered secured creditors' dues take priority over State tax dues and statutory charges.

Analysis: Section 26E of the SARFAESI Act and Section 31B of the RDDB Act confer priority upon secured creditors in distribution of sale proceeds over all debts, revenues, taxes, cesses and rates payable to governmental authorities. The State provisions creating a first charge, including Section 82 of the MGST Act and amended Section 37 of the MVAT Act, do not displace that statutory priority. The secured interests in the cases were registered before the State departments' charges, or the State charges were not registered.

Conclusion: The secured creditors' registered dues have priority over the State tax dues, in favour of the secured creditors.

Issue (ii): Whether State attachment orders issued before enforcement of the secured-creditor priority provisions can defeat that priority without a lawful public proclamation and consequential recovery steps.

Analysis: A mere attachment order is insufficient. For a pre-enforcement attachment to resist the secured creditor's priority, the State must establish attachment and public proclamation in accordance with the applicable revenue-recovery procedure, along with the required consequential steps. The State did not establish compliance with those requirements in any of the relevant petitions.

Conclusion: The unproclaimed and incompletely enforced State attachments cannot defeat the secured creditors' statutory priority, in favour of the secured creditors.

Issue (iii): Whether an auction purchaser of a secured asset may be subjected to a State boja/encumbrance after completion of the secured sale.

Analysis: Upon payment of consideration and issuance of the sale certificate in a secured sale, the auction purchaser is entitled to enjoy the asset free from a State encumbrance that cannot prevail over the secured creditor's priority. An "as is where is" sale condition does not permit the State to pursue the same asset or retain a revenue-record boja after enforcement of the security interest.

Conclusion: The State cannot retain or enforce a boja/encumbrance against the auction purchasers' secured-sale assets, in favour of the auction purchasers.

Final Conclusion: The impugned State attachment orders, notices, communications and revenue-record encumbrances were invalidated, and consequential removal of the encumbrances was required.

Ratio Decidendi: Statutory priority of a duly registered secured creditor under the central recovery regime prevails over State tax charges unless a pre-existing State attachment was lawfully completed through the prescribed public-proclamation and recovery process.

Issues: Whether the petitioner should be granted regular bail pending investigation into alleged clandestine manufacture and clearance of pan masala without registration and payment of cess.

Analysis: The alleged offences were punishable with imprisonment of less than five years. The petitioner had remained in custody since 18.06.2026; investigation was still pending, but no custody petition had been filed. These circumstances warranted release on bail subject to stringent safeguards for investigation and compliance with statutory bail conditions.

Conclusion: Regular bail was granted to the petitioner, subject to execution of bond and sureties, weekly appearance before the investigating officer for the stipulated period or until filing of the charge sheet, and compliance with applicable bail conditions.