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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Issues: (i) Whether the delay in filing the appeal was supported by sufficient cause; (ii) Whether interest earned on deposits with a district central co-operative bank was deductible under section 80P(2)(a)(i) or section 80P(2)(d), and the consequential treatment of related cost of funds.

Issue (i): Whether the delay in filing the appeal was supported by sufficient cause.

Analysis: The assessee's affidavit that the appellate order was not served at its stated email address remained unrebutted. It acted promptly after becoming aware of the order through penalty proceedings.

Conclusion: The delay was caused by sufficient cause and was condoned, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether interest earned on deposits with a district central co-operative bank was deductible under section 80P(2)(a)(i) or section 80P(2)(d), and the consequential treatment of related cost of funds.

Analysis: The record did not establish the precise provision under which the deduction had originally been claimed. Where deposits represent statutory reserve funds maintained under Rule 28 and the interest is attributable to the specified business activities, the claim requires examination under section 80P(2)(a)(i). Conversely, interest received from a co-operative bank is not deductible under section 80P(2)(d). If such interest is assessed as income from other sources, the related cost of funds must be allowed, with a corresponding adjustment to any deduction under section 80P(2)(a)(i).

Conclusion: The eligibility of the interest under section 80P(2)(a)(i) was remitted for verification of the source and statutory character of the deposits. If the claim is under section 80P(2)(d), the deduction is unavailable, but the related cost of funds must be deducted; the issue was remanded with these directions, partly in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The Assessing Officer must freshly determine the character of the deposits and apply the applicable deduction provisions and consequential cost-of-funds adjustment.

Ratio Decidendi: Interest earned from a co-operative bank is not deductible under section 80P(2)(d), but where assessed as income from other sources, expenditure constituting the related cost of funds must be allowed; a claim under section 80P(2)(a)(i) depends on whether the income is attributable to the specified business activity.

Issues: Whether the refund claim should be considered under Section 27 of the Customs Act, 1962 rather than Section 26A of the Customs Act, 1962.

Analysis: The refund was treated by the adjudicating authority as a claim under Section 26A because the assessee had altered its stand before that authority. The assessee asserted that it had subsequently and specifically sought consideration under Section 27 before the Commissioner (Appeals), but did not produce the appeal memorandum, grounds, or written submissions to establish that plea despite being required to do so. The applicability of Section 27 could not be examined without verification of whether that contention was actually raised before the appellate authority.

Conclusion: The matter is remitted to the Commissioner (Appeals) to verify the assessee's prior pleadings; upon proof of a Section 27 plea, the refund claim must be adjudicated on merits under that provision, and otherwise it shall be considered under Section 26A alone.

Issues: (i) Whether absolute confiscation of the undeclared gold ornaments was warranted, or redemption on payment of fine should be permitted; (ii) Whether the penalty imposed for non-declaration of the gold ornaments required reduction.

Issue (i): Whether absolute confiscation of the undeclared gold ornaments was warranted, or redemption on payment of fine should be permitted.

Analysis: The ornaments were liable to confiscation because they were not declared and no licit import documents were produced. However, the statutory discretion concerning redemption required consideration of the nature of the goods, quantity, manner of carriage, conduct of the passenger, and surrounding circumstances. The goods were finished ornaments weighing 418 grams, rather than commercial quantities of primary gold or bullion; one chain was worn by the passenger, and there was no material showing an organised smuggling operation or ingenious concealment. The contravention was assessed as arising from a bona fide misconception about baggage permissibility rather than a deliberate clandestine import.

Conclusion: The confiscation is sustained, but absolute confiscation is set aside to the extent that redemption is allowed on payment of redemption fine of Rs.1,00,000 in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the penalty imposed for non-declaration of the gold ornaments required reduction.

Analysis: The penalty was found disproportionate in light of the personal nature of the ornaments, absence of demonstrated prior involvement in similar activity, and absence of material linking the passenger to an organised smuggling network.

Conclusion: The penalty is reduced from Rs.6,00,000 to Rs.50,000 in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The goods remain confiscable, but the passenger obtains the statutory option to recover the ornaments by paying the prescribed redemption fine, with a moderated monetary penalty.

Ratio Decidendi: Where undeclared gold consists of personal ornaments and the circumstances do not establish commercial-scale or organised smuggling, discretion regarding confiscation must be exercised judiciously and redemption with proportionate penalty may be granted.

Issues: (i) Whether the prayers for correction of the company master data and removal of purported directors survived after the Ministry's compliance; (ii) Whether writ jurisdiction should be exercised to direct investigation into the alleged fraud despite available statutory remedies and pending proceedings before competent fora; (iii) Whether the order permitting the IRP to take protective measures concerning assets should be recalled where affected third parties had not been heard.

Issue (i): Whether the prayers for correction of the company master data and removal of purported directors survived after the Ministry's compliance.

Analysis: The compliance affidavit established that the names reflected as director and additional director had been removed from the master data. The prior direction requiring the company's status to be shown as under CIRP also addressed the remaining status-related grievance.

Conclusion: The master-data and director-related prayers stood satisfied.

Issue (ii): Whether writ jurisdiction should be exercised to direct investigation into the alleged fraud despite available statutory remedies and pending proceedings before competent fora.

Analysis: The investigation prayer had been rendered infructuous by subsequent restitution and investigative proceedings. Effective remedies were available under the insolvency, anti-money-laundering and company-law regimes, while the CIRP had been revived and the NCLT was already seized of the controversy. In the absence of circumstances warranting departure from the rule of alternative remedy, discretionary writ jurisdiction was not to be exercised.

Conclusion: No writ direction for investigation was warranted; the parties may pursue remedies before the competent statutory fora. This is against the petitioner.

Issue (iii): Whether the order permitting the IRP to take protective measures concerning assets should be recalled where affected third parties had not been heard.

Analysis: The affected applicants were not parties to the writ petition when the asset-protection order was made and had no opportunity of hearing. Further, once the writ petition was not being entertained on merits because alternative remedies were available, interim directions could not continue as the sole final relief.

Conclusion: The asset-protection order could not continue and was vacated. This is in favour of the recall applicants.

Final Conclusion: The surviving controversies concerning investigation, assets and restitution are to be pursued and determined by the competent statutory and judicial fora on their own merits.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an efficacious statutory remedy is available and the writ court declines merits adjudication, it cannot preserve interim relief as the sole final relief; an order materially affecting non-parties without a hearing also violates natural justice.

Issues: Whether the CNG supply-and-sale arrangement constituted a principal-to-principal sale or a principal-agent arrangement, and whether the respondent-Corporations' activities consequently constituted taxable Business Auxiliary Service.

Analysis: A sale requires transfer of property in goods for a price; agency entails acting on behalf of and subject to the principal's control. The agreements required the respondent-Corporations to provide outlets, infrastructure, utilities and trained personnel; MGL installed and owned the equipment, fixed and revised the retail price, monitored meter readings and supplies, retained inspection rights, and controlled the disposal or return of unsold CNG on termination. The risk and title in CNG did not pass to the respondent-Corporations. The contractual arrangement, read as a whole, therefore established that they facilitated MGL's sales to vehicle owners rather than purchased CNG for resale.

Analysis: The payment linked to actual quantities sold was expressly stipulated as commission/profit margin for services. In the context of MGL's continuing control and ownership, it was remuneration for agency services, not a trade discount. The respondent-Corporations promoted and marketed MGL's CNG and sold it on MGL's behalf, falling within Business Auxiliary Service and the definition of a commission agent.

Conclusion: The arrangement was one of principal and agent, not sale; the respondent-Corporations rendered taxable Business Auxiliary Service to MGL and were liable to service tax.

Issues: Whether exemption for Aluminium Baxter Flyers intended for use in jute mills was available where the job worker cleared the goods to the principal manufacturer for heat treatment and subsequent supply to jute mills, and no intimation was furnished to the jurisdictional officer.

Analysis: Condition 2 required proof to the satisfaction of the jurisdictional Deputy/Assistant Commissioner that the goods were cleared for their intended use in a jute mill. Baxter Flyers were exclusively usable in jute spinning frames, and the invoices established that, after heat treatment by the principal manufacturer, they were supplied to jute mills. The condition did not require direct supply by the job worker to a jute mill or use of the goods without intermediate processing. The notifications also prescribed no prior or post-clearance intimation requirement; absence of such intimation was, at most, a procedural breach and could not defeat substantive exemption entitlement where intended use was established.

Conclusion: The assessee fulfilled Condition 2 and was entitled to exemption; the duty demand, interest and penalty were unsustainable.

Issues: Whether redemption fine imposed in lieu of confiscation of goods is covered by the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019, so that a declarant is eligible to seek settlement.

Analysis: Section 125 of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2019 specifies the categories excluded from making a declaration under the Scheme. Confiscation of goods or liability to redemption fine is not among those exclusions. The Scheme's objective of resolving legacy indirect-tax disputes, together with the treatment of redemption fine as inseparable from the recoverable duty demand, does not permit rejection of a declaration solely because it includes redemption fine. The departmental interpretation excluding redemption fine from the Scheme was inconsistent with the statutory framework.

Conclusion: Redemption fine in lieu of confiscation is covered by the Scheme, and the assessee is eligible to file a declaration notwithstanding inclusion of redemption fine.

Issues: Whether the challenge to a provisional attachment order survived after the statutory period of attachment had expired.

Analysis: A provisional attachment under Section 83 remains effective for only one year from its date. The impugned attachment order had consequently ceased to operate by efflux of time before disposal of the writ petition, leaving no subsisting order requiring adjudication.

Conclusion: The challenge to the expired provisional attachment order did not survive for adjudication.

Issues: Whether dispensing units installed at retail outlets of a company engaged in refining and marketing petroleum products qualify as new plant or machinery eligible for investment allowance under section 32AC.

Analysis: Section 32AC allows investment allowance to a company engaged in the business of manufacture or production that acquires and installs qualifying new plant or machinery. The dispensing units were accepted as plant and machinery for depreciation purposes and did not fall within any exclusion in section 32AC(4). The manufacturing and marketing operations constituted one integral and indivisible business, with retail dispensing being the necessary terminal stage for selling the petroleum products. The statutory regulatory framework governing sale of petrol and diesel also made dispensing units indispensable to the integrated manufacturing business. The principle applied under the predecessor investment-allowance provision remained applicable because both provisions condition the allowance on engagement in the business of manufacture or production, rather than requiring each eligible asset to be directly used in the physical manufacturing process.

Conclusion: Dispensing units are qualifying new plant or machinery used in the assessee's integrated business of manufacture or production and are eligible for investment allowance under section 32AC; the conclusion is in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Where manufacture and marketing form an integrated business, plant and machinery used at the marketing and sale stage qualifies for investment allowance where the statutory requirement is engagement in the business of manufacture or production and the asset is not otherwise excluded.

Issues: Whether a separate transfer-pricing adjustment for interest on delayed trade receivables from associated enterprises is warranted where the assessee's margin remains higher than that of comparable companies after working-capital adjustment.

Analysis: Separate benchmarking of trade receivables is not excluded merely because the principal international transactions were benchmarked under the transactional net margin method. However, where the working-capital-adjusted margin of the comparable companies is lower than the margin earned by the assessee, the opportunity cost attributable to extended credit is already absorbed in the profitability analysis and no separate adjustment for interest on trade receivables is required. The asserted working-capital adjustment and resultant margins require verification.

Conclusion: The issue is remitted for verification; if the working-capital-adjusted comparable margin is lower than the assessee's margin, the transfer-pricing adjustment for interest on trade receivables shall be deleted, in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether the petitioner should be permitted to pursue the statutory appellate remedy against the impugned GST orders.

Analysis: The petitioner elected to avail the appellate remedy, including by filing applications for condonation of delay. No merits of the challenges to the impugned orders were adjudicated. The appellate authority was directed to consider delay on the stated facts and, if satisfied, determine the appeals on merits in accordance with law.

Outcome: The writ petitions were disposed of with liberty to file statutory appeals within two weeks along with statutory pre-deposit and delay-condonation applications.

Issues: Whether revision of the assessment order under Section 263 on the ground that deduction under Section 80P(2)(d) was impermissible for want of an original return under Section 139(1) was valid.

Analysis: A return furnished within the period specified in a notice under Section 148 is, by virtue of Section 148(2), to be treated as a return required under Section 139. Sections 148(2) and 80AC must be read conjointly. Since the return was filed within the time allowed by the notice under Section 148, the condition concerning timely filing for deduction under Chapter VI-A stood fulfilled. The deduction related directly to interest arising from the deposits forming the subject of the assessment proceedings, and was therefore not an unrelated claim in a reassessment. The Assessing Officer had examined and accepted the claim; the view adopted was sustainable and could not be characterised as erroneous and prejudicial to Revenue interests. The Revenue could not enlarge the revisionary grounds through a fresh contention beyond the show-cause notice and findings underlying the revision order.

Conclusion: The assessment order allowing deduction under Section 80P(2)(d) was neither erroneous nor prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue; the revision under Section 263 was invalid.