Delegation of recovery powers to Assistant Commissioner enables initiation of recovery under Customs Act and Finance Act.
The Commissioner of GST & Central Excise, Aurangabad delegated authority to the Assistant Commissioner, Tax Recovery Cell to initiate recovery proceedings for Central Excise arrears under the Customs Act and for Service Tax arrears under the Finance Act, to expedite arrears collection within the GST & Central Excise office in Aurangabad.

Transaction charge parity required: exchanges must cap fee differentials within turnover slabs to ensure uniformity and transparency.
The circular substitutes a provision requiring exchanges to ensure that the ratio between highest to lowest transaction charges in the turnover slab of any contract is not more than 2:1, standardising fee differentials. Exchanges must amend relevant bye-laws, notify members, and publish the provision on their websites, with implementation from the specified commencement period; the directive is issued under the regulator's powers to protect investors and regulate the market.

All Industry Rates of Duty Drawback amended with enhanced rates for select goods and reclassification for polypropylene mats.
Amendments adjust the All Industry Rates of Duty Drawback effective from 25.01.2018, increasing rates/caps for specified marine products, selected rubber articles, leather goods, wool yarns and fabrics, glass handicrafts, bicycles, and certain man made textile nets; reducing rates/caps for specified chemicals; and deleting tariff item 391802 so polypropylene mats are reclassified under tariff item 460101 with the existing rate/cap.

Outsourcing prohibition by insolvency professionals bans requiring third-party eligibility certificates for resolution applicants under the Code.
An insolvency professional is prohibited from outsourcing statutory duties under the Code; engaging assistants is permitted for support but does not transfer responsibility, and an insolvency professional shall not require third party certificates certifying a resolution applicant's eligibility.

Insolvency professional duty: ensure compliance with applicable laws; personal liability for non-compliance not recoverable as insolvency costs.
An insolvency professional acting as Interim Resolution Professional, Resolution Professional or Liquidator must exercise reasonable care and diligence and take necessary steps to ensure the corporate person undergoing insolvency or liquidation complies with all applicable laws; losses or penalties arising from non-compliance shall not form part of insolvency resolution or liquidation process costs, and the insolvency professional will be held responsible for non-compliance caused by their conduct.

Registered address and registration number requirement: insolvency professionals must use registered contact details in all communications.
Insolvency professionals must prominently state their registered name, address, email and registration number, and the capacity in which they are communicating, in all communications; they may add a process-specific address and email so long as those are additional to the registered details and are maintained for at least six months after conclusion of their role.

GST trader verification instructions require geo-tagged surveys, turnover-based checks, and REG-30 compliance for new and migrated registrants.
Instructions were issued for the survey and verification of newly registered and migrated GST traders through employee-led checks, handheld devices, and mobile-app-based photography with geo-location capture. Traders not operating at the declared address, traders who migrated to GST and later cancelled registration, traders who did not migrate, and cancelled service tax registrants found carrying on business were all to be identified and checked under prescribed turnover thresholds and timelines. Newly registered e-way bill users and low-tax traders were also assigned for verification in REG-30 format under GST rules.

GST refund processing requires manual applications, prescribed undertakings, inter-authority payment coordination, and bars credit refunds where drawback is availed.
Manual GST refund processing applies to accumulated input tax credit from inverted duty structure, deemed exports and excess electronic cash ledger balances until the portal module is available. Applications in FORM GST RFD-01A require prescribed periodic returns, supporting statements and, where applicable, undertakings. Deemed-export claims may be made by the supplier or recipient subject to reciprocal non-claim undertakings. Rejected debits are re-credited to the electronic credit ledger, while Central and State tax authorities coordinate payment of their respective sanctioned components. Accumulated input tax credit refund is unavailable where GST drawback has been availed.

Schemes of Arrangement: revised filing, independent valuation, public shareholding safeguards and mandatory lock-in and listing timelines.
Amendments require draft schemes for wholly owned subsidiary mergers to be filed with stock exchanges for disclosure; mandate that valuation reports and fairness opinions be supplied by an Independent Chartered Accountant and an Independent SEBI-registered Merchant Banker absent material conflicts; impose a minimum public-holding safeguard in the post-scheme shareholding on a fully diluted basis; prescribe staged lock-in of pre-scheme share capital for unlisted issuers seeking listing with limited exceptions and permitted pledges or inter-se promoter transfers; and require completion of listing and commencement of trading within a specified period after the court order with prior newspaper disclosures.

SION modification: import quantity requirement increased for raw sesame seeds against hulled sesame seeds export.
Modification of SION K 36 revises the input requirement for Hulled Sesame Seeds: the prescribed input quantity of Raw Sesame Seeds at S. No. 1 is amended to a higher quantity per unit of export. The change is notified under Paragraph 1.03 of the Foreign Trade Policy, 2015-2020 and updates the Handbook of Procedure Vol. II SION entry for the specified export item.

Revised process requires mandatory preliminary Customs feasibility assessment before online IMC submission for ICD/CFS/AFS projects.
Developers must obtain a mandatory preliminary feasibility assessment from the jurisdictional Customs Commissioner-completed within one month-covering land availability and title, land use permissions, promoter antecedents and project viability, before submitting applications online to the IMC; CBEC will forward Commissionerate views and the IMC will consider proposals via the new electronic module.

Customs authorization for drugs consignments allows a designated CDSCO Drugs Inspector to clear import and export entries at the port.
Authorization is granted for a designated CDSCO Drugs Inspector to process and clear import Bills of Entry and export Shipping Bills for drugs and pharmaceuticals under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and rules at Krishnapatnam Port, Nellore, and stakeholders are directed to utilize the inspector's services and report any implementation difficulties to the customs office.

Payments in Indian rupees allowed at duty free shops via INR cards; arrival payments limited, departure payments unrestricted.
Payments by passengers at Duty Free Shops may be made directly in Indian rupees through INR credit or debit cards without conversion of foreign exchange and without conversion charges; DFS must display all prices in Indian rupees only. The pre existing cash ceiling in Indian currency remains applicable; INR card payments in the arrival hall are subject to the incoming passenger Indian currency ceiling, while INR card payments in the departure hall are permitted without limit for outgoing passengers. If a passenger opts to pay in foreign currency, the DFS shall apply the exchange rate notified under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962.

Delegation of Powers: authorises officers not below Deputy Assistant Commissioner to exercise assessment and penalty powers under the GST Act.
The Chief Commissioner, invoking sub section (3) of Section 5 of the Andhra Pradesh Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, delegates to all officers not below the rank of Deputy Assistant Commissioner of State Tax in the Divisions and in the Enforcement Wing the power to exercise the powers contained in sub section (12) of Section 67 and sub section (1) of Section 122 of the Andhra Pradesh GST Act; these orders take effect immediately.

Deemed export supplies: prior intimation, endorsed tax invoices and digital records enable tax refund claims by supplier or recipient.
Supplies by registered persons to EOU/EHTP/STP/BTP units are treated as deemed exports under Section 147 of the APGST Act, 2017, with refund of tax paid claimable by either supplier or recipient. The recipient must give prior intimation in Form A to the supplier and relevant jurisdictional Assistant Commissioners; the supplier issues a tax invoice which the recipient endorses and forwards as proof. Recipient units must maintain mandatory digital records per Form B with an audit trail and submit a monthly digital copy to the jurisdictional Assistant Commissioner by the tenth day of the following month.

SEZ default authorised services reiterated, maintaining IGST-exempt list for unit approval committees' permitted services under circular
A uniform default list of 66 authorised services is to be followed in SEZs and permitted by all Unit Approval Committees as default authorised operations. The Board of Approval, after noting that some States were not extending IGST exemption post GST implementation, approved reiteration of the previously approved list; the Annexure sets out the specific services to be treated as default authorised services for SEZ units.

Eligibility for Letter of Undertaking expanded to suppliers meeting foreign remittance criteria permitting LUT in place of bond for exports.
Clarification sets out that a Letter of Undertaking (LUT) for zero rating exports is available to any registered person meeting specified foreign inward remittance thresholds or to status holders regardless of thresholds; LUTs/bonds must be accepted within three working days, supplies to EOUs and merchant exporter purchases are taxable unless exported by the actual exporter under LUT or IGST payment, bank guarantees may be limited or waived on grounds such as export promotion council registration or aggregation of remittances across state registrations, and self declarations and submitted proof are to be accepted unless contrary evidence exists.

Deemed export treatment for supplies to EOUs allows refund claims by supplier or recipient under prescribed procedures.
Supplies to EOU/EHTP/STP/BTP units are treated as deemed exports permitting refund claims by supplier or recipient; recipients must give prior intimation in Form A to supplier and both jurisdictional Assistant Commissioners, suppliers issue tax invoices which recipients endorse and circulate as proof, and recipients must maintain Form B based digital records with an audit trail and submit monthly digital transaction copies to the jurisdictional Assistant Commissioner by the tenth of the following month.

GST return reconciliation: system matches GSTR-1/2 to GSTR-3B, requiring additional ledger debits or ITC credits as needed.
System-based reconciliation requires suppliers to file FORM GSTR-1 and recipients to finalise FORM GSTR-2 using auto-populated FORM GSTR-2A; the portal auto-drafts FORM GSTR-3 and computes revised tax payable in Table 12. Where reconciled tax payable exceeds payments shown in FORM GSTR-3B, additional tax must be paid by debiting the electronic cash or credit ledger with interest under section 49; excess eligible ITC in FORM GSTR-2 is credited to the electronic credit ledger upon submission of FORM GSTR-3 and may be applied to increased tax liabilities.

GST data analysis cells to monitor ITC claims, detect bogus transactions, and record enforcement actions online.
Instructions require each zone to constitute a Data Analysis Cell under the Zonal Additional Commissioner for systematic analysis of GST data relating to online registration, migration, GSTR-3B and other returns, and departmental e-way bill information. The cell is to identify possible tax evasion, incorrect ITC claims, and bogus transactions, and submit reports for further zonal consideration. The instructions also require soft copy reporting by e-mail and online recording of innovative enforcement actions through the departmental portal using specified modules.