Pricing methodology: privately placed InvIT institutional placements floor set at NAV per unit; public InvITs retain market-based floor.
SEBI distinguishes pricing for institutional placements: public InvITs must price at not less than the average of weekly high and low of closing market prices for the two weeks preceding the relevant date, with a permissible discounted price subject to unitholder approval; privately placed InvITs must price at not less than the NAV per unit based on a full valuation of all existing assets under the InvIT Regulations. The circular takes immediate effect.

Investigation jurisdiction: All India DGGI procedures to coordinate inter zonal probes and streamline summons and record based inquiries.
DGGI units have all India jurisdiction for GST enforcement but must follow operating procedures: Zonal ADG/ADG approval is required to initiate investigations, record based investigations are to be initiated by the ZU where the entity is registered, and cross jurisdictional or sensitive cases require higher approval. Summons and information requests must be specific, not fishing, avoid portal data demands, and receive prior reasoned approval, with mandatory e file documentation. Coordination among offices is required to prevent duplication and investigations should conclude promptly, ordinarily within one year.

Relaxation of additional fees for LLP beneficial owner filings permits penalty free submission of BEN 2 and Form 4D.
The Ministry prescribed e form LLP BEN 2 for declarations under the Significant Beneficial Owners rules and e form LLP Form No. 4D for declarations of beneficial interest in contributions. To aid compliance during migration of the filing portal to version 3, LLPs may file LLP BEN 2 and LLP Form No. 4D without payment of any additional fees until 15.05.2024; the forms will be available on version 3 for filing from 15.04.2024.

Return of draft offer document for non compliant disclosures requires remedial resubmission and public disclosure by the issuer.
Guidelines require return of draft offer documents that fail disclosure and presentation standards under Schedule VI of the ICDR Regulations, need substantial revision, face corrective regulatory interpretation, show inconsistencies, or involve material concerns from other regulators or litigation affecting eligibility. Resubmitted drafts must address the specific deficiencies, comply with ICDR and other laws, may incur fees for subsequent changes under Schedule XVI, and must be publicly announced as resubmissions with sectoral regulator intimation where applicable.

Drawback claim queries: exporters must reply in EDI by the prescribed deadline to avoid processing on record basis.
Exporters and other trade stakeholders must monitor Drawback claim status in the EDI system and reply to queries in the "Query Raised" or "EXPORTER" queues; replies in EDI trigger immediate processing and disbursement. Claims with shipping bills prior to 01.10.2023 must be answered or explained in person to the Assistant Commissioner (Drawback) by 28.02.2024, failing which claims will be processed based on available records or applicable rates. Annexure I lists pending claims and contact details are provided for assistance.

Waiver of late fee for delayed Bills of Entry due to ICEGATE disruption, providing administrative relief and reporting channel.
A waiver of late fee is granted for Bills of Entry delayed because of erratic ICEGATE functioning for cargo arriving at Chennai Air Cargo/Airport during the notice period; the waiver is provided under the statutory framework for electronic Bill of Entry filing, is to be treated as a Standing Order for departmental officers, and affected parties should report remaining difficulties to the Additional Commissioner for necessary action.

Restriction on export of specified goods prevents IGST-paid exports; refund route blocked at shipping bill level.
Goods listed in the notification must be exported only under LUT and cannot be exported on payment of IGST with refund; CBIC's backend disables the IGST refund route at the shipping bill level so any shipping bill containing a restricted item will not be allowed to be filed for the IGST-paid export/refund route.

Change of manufacturing site: import source cancelled; applicants must treat that supplier as new registration requiring data submission.
The Registration Committee found the manufacturer failed to notify a change of location of the manufacturing site and did not provide the required 5-Batch samples from old and new sites for impurity verification; as samples from the old plant are unavailable, the Committee cancelled the import source designation and directed that future applicants treat the source as a new registration with requisite data submissions and testing.

GST on composite supplies: principal supply governs tax; electricity ancillary to rent is taxed at the rent rate.
The circular limits same line of business to passenger transport and renting with operator, excludes leasing without operator; treats electricity bundled with rent/maintenance as a composite supply taxed according to the principal supply unless recovered as a pure agent; classifies job work converting barley to malt as job work in relation to food products attracting the food job work rate; recognises DMFTs as Governmental Authorities eligible for exemptions; and confirms horticulture services to CPWD with goods 25% qualify for exemption.

Imitation zari thread classification clarified: metallised-film yarn attract reduced GST rate and no refund on polyester inputs
Imitation zari thread or yarn made from metallised polyester film or plastic film falling under HS 5605 is to be treated as imitation zari under the Schedule I reduced-rate entry and attract 5% GST; no refund is permitted on polyester (metallised)/plastic film for inversion of tax rate, and the tax-rate notification has been amended to reflect this clarification.

Supply of Service: personal and corporate guarantees treated as taxable between related persons; valuation rules govern taxability.
Providing personal guarantees by directors to secure company credit is a supply of service between related persons and is valued under Rule 28; where RBI prohibits any consideration to guarantors the open market value may be treated as zero and taxable value may be nil, except in exceptional cases where remuneration is paid. Corporate guarantees by related companies, including holding company guarantees for subsidiaries, are also supplies of service and their taxable value is to be determined under Rule 28 as amended by the newly inserted sub rule (2), which governs valuation of such corporate guarantees and does not apply to personal guarantees.

Place of supply rules clarified: recipient location governs transportation, advertising and co location services under GST provisions.
The circular clarifies that for transportation of goods with supplier or recipient outside India the default rule under section 13(2) of the IGST Act governs place of supply (recipient location if available, otherwise supplier). Advertising services supplying or granting rights to use hoarding space are treated as services related to immovable property with place of supply at the property's location; pure display services without transfer of space or rights follow the default rule. Typical co-location services are classed as Hosting and IT Infrastructure Provisioning services and follow the default rule (location of recipient), except where only physical space with basic infrastructure is supplied, which is renting of immovable property.

Export of services payment via Special Rupee Vostro accounts qualifies under IGST export payment condition.
Payments credited to Special Rupee Vostro Accounts opened by AD banks, under RBI's rupee settlement mechanism and the Foreign Trade Policy procedures, shall be regarded as satisfying the IGST export payment condition where exporters are paid export proceeds in Indian rupees from balances in designated correspondent bank Special Vostro Accounts, subject to applicable RBI and Foreign Trade Policy conditions and other statutory permissions.

Track and Trace requirement for exported pharmaceuticals extended, Parent-Child packaging relationship compliance deferred to February 1, 2025.
Extension of the Track and Trace compliance timeline for export pharmaceutical consignments postpones the mandatory maintenance and Central Portal uploading of the Parent-Child relationship across packaging levels, amending the Handbook of Procedure and prior public notices to apply the new implementation date uniformly to both small-scale and non-small-scale manufacturers.

IPE liability clarified: authorised partners receive disciplinary notices; assignment limits and fixed fee rules do not apply to IPEs.
Show cause notices for assignments undertaken by an IPE shall be issued to the partner or director authorised to sign and act for that assignment; the IPE itself may be targeted where repeated contraventions or systemic failure are found. Clause 22 limiting number of assignments does not apply to an IP that is an IPE. Regulation 34B prescribing minimum fixed and incentive fees for CIRP practitioners does not apply to an IP that is an IPE, whose fees are to be market determined.

Professional service by insolvency professionals permitted for resolution plan implementation when expressly specified in the approved plan.
An IP may render professional services for implementation of an approved resolution plan only if such services are specified in the resolution plan. Bills or invoices for professionals engaged by the IP may be raised in the name of the insolvency professional entity, the individual professional, or the firm in which the professional is a partner, and fees must be paid through banking channels; these clarifications are issued under the Board's statutory powers.

Electronic declaration for postal exports authorizes additional booking post offices to file e PBE and accept export consignments.
The Department of Posts has authorized fourteen Booking Post Offices with Dak Ghar Niryat Kendra (DNK) facility for electronic filing of the Postal Bill of Export (e PBE) and to accept international mail consignments booked via the DNK portal, mapping each Booking Post Office to a corresponding Foreign Post Office; these offices are additional to earlier notified DNK locations.

Ex-bond shipping bill requires warehouse linkage and itemwise into-bond BE tracking with automatic ledger updates on filing.
ICES 1.5 now includes an ex-bond shipping bill format requiring a warehouse code and mandatory item-wise linkage to the original into-bond BE details; only one warehouse may be specified per shipping bill, though multiple into-bond BEs for the same item may be entered as separate lines. Filing, cancellation or amendment of the shipping bill automatically debits or re-credits quantities in the warehouse ledger. The format applies only to export of warehoused goods as such and is a free shipping bill with no export incentives available.

Tax refund processing timeframe extended to allow processing of electronically filed returns with refund claims until the prescribed April deadline.
The Board, under its section 119 authority, further relaxes the time in the second proviso to sub section (1) of section 143 to permit processing of electronically filed returns with refund claims up to AY 2020 21 that had become time barred; such returns should be processed by 30.04.2024, with all other terms of the earlier orders remaining unchanged.

Certificate of Origin (Non Preferential) authorization reinstated: chambers enlisted to issue COO(NP) after onboarding compliance.
Director General of Foreign Trade enlists specified chambers under Appendix 2E of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023, authorising them to issue Certificate of Origin (Non Preferential). The notice reinstates entities earlier de listed for non compliance with onboarding to the Common Digital Platform and records the administrative effect, contact details of the enlisted chambers, and the DGFT file reference.