Issues: Whether a disallowance under Section 14A read with Rule 8D is sustainable for AY 2014-15 where no exempt income was earned, by retrospectively applying the Explanation inserted by the Finance Act, 2022.

Analysis: The Explanation to Section 14A, effective from 01.04.2022, altered the earlier legal position concerning disallowance where exempt income had not accrued, arisen or been received. An amendment which changes the law cannot be treated as retrospective merely because it is expressed to be for removal of doubts. The Explanation applies from AY 2022-23 onwards and cannot govern AY 2014-15. The record established that no exempt income was earned during the relevant previous year.

Conclusion: The Explanation to Section 14A inserted by the Finance Act, 2022 was inapplicable to AY 2014-15, and the disallowance under Section 14A read with Rule 8D was deleted.

Issues: (i) Whether Section 43CB of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and ICDS-III applied to a real estate project developed and sold by the assessee on its own account; (ii) Whether the Percentage Completion Method computation could recognise project profit for the relevant year; (iii) Whether enhancement of income without prior notice to the assessee was valid.

Issue (i): Whether Section 43CB of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and ICDS-III applied to a real estate project developed and sold by the assessee on its own account.

Analysis: A developer undertaking a project at its own commercial risk and earning from sale of developed units is distinct from a contractor executing work for another person or a provider of construction services. The ninety-day condition applicable to certain service contracts could not convert the development project into a construction or service contract. Further, the project had commenced in 2007 and the transitional provision under ICDS-III supported continuation of the Project Completion Method consistently followed before 01.04.2016. That method had also been accepted for the same project in preceding and subsequent assessment years without any material change in the project or business.

Conclusion: Section 43CB of the Income-tax Act, 1961 did not govern the project, and the Project Completion Method could be continued. In favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the Percentage Completion Method computation could recognise project profit for the relevant year.

Analysis: No actual construction activity was undertaken during the relevant year, and the increase in work-in-progress represented principally finance cost, administrative expenditure and sales-promotion expenditure. The computation applied cumulative project cost and customer advances to recognise revenue but deducted only current-year expenditure, resulting in a mismatch between revenue and corresponding cost. Such expenditure, without construction progress or corresponding revenue, could not itself result in recognition of project profit.

Conclusion: No project profit was recognisable through the adopted Percentage Completion Method computation for the relevant year. In favour of the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether enhancement of income without prior notice to the assessee was valid.

Analysis: Section 251(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 mandates a reasonable opportunity before enhancement. No separate notice proposing enhancement was issued. In addition, the entire increase in work-in-progress comprised capitalised costs and no corresponding revenue was identified to support its treatment as income.

Conclusion: The enhancement made without prior opportunity was invalid and could not be sustained. In favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The revenue-recognition addition and the appellate enhancement were unsustainable.

Ratio Decidendi: Section 43CB cannot be applied to a developer that develops and sells its own project at commercial risk rather than executing a construction or service contract for another person.

Issues: Whether revisional jurisdiction was validly exercised under section 263 where the assessment allowed substantial advertisement and sales-promotion expenditure and ESOP expenditure without enquiry.

Analysis: Section 263(1) permits revision where an assessment order is both erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue. The protection available where the Assessing Officer adopts a legally possible view applies only if the issue was examined and a conscious view was formed. The assessment record disclosed no enquiry into the nature, break-up, and possible connection of the advertisement expenditure with business expansion, or into the ESOP scheme, valuation, vesting, lapses, computation, and year-wise accrual. Mere acceptance of claims without enquiry did not amount to adoption of a possible view. The allowability of the expenditure under section 37(1), or the possible applicability of section 35D, required factual verification and was not decided on merits in the revision proceedings. The show-cause notice had specifically identified the absence of enquiry into both claims; consequently, reference to Explanation 2 to section 263 in the revisional order introduced no new basis. The revision was independently sustainable under section 263(1), and an audit objection as the source of information did not negate the Principal Commissioner's independent satisfaction from the assessment record and the assessee's replies.

Conclusion: The assessment order was erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue because substantial claims were allowed without requisite enquiry; the limited revision and restoration of those issues for verification were valid, against the assessee.

Issues: Whether cash deposits made during demonetization, stated to be sourced from recorded cash sales of bullion and jewellery, could be treated as unexplained cash credits under Section 68 of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: Section 68 applies where the nature and source of a credit remain unexplained or the explanation is unsatisfactory. The audited books, cash book, purchase and sales records, stock details, and VAT returns disclosed cash sales and corresponding availability and depletion of stock. The Assessing Officer neither found defects in these records nor established that the stock was unavailable, diverted, or that the recorded sales had not occurred. A rise in cash sales before demonetization, without contrary evidence, could not by itself displace the documented source of the deposits. Since the sale receipts were already credited to the trading account and reflected in returned income, treating the same receipts again as unexplained cash credits would result in double taxation. The addition rested on suspicion and human-probability considerations rather than material disproving the sales.

Conclusion: The recorded cash sales constituted an explained source of the bank deposits; therefore, no addition under Section 68 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was sustainable.

Issues: (i) Whether a stayed predicate FIR, or references to later FIRs, invalidates the PMLA summons; (ii) Whether the summons should be invalidated for want of particulars and violation of natural justice.

Issue (i): Whether a stayed predicate FIR, or references to later FIRs, invalidates the PMLA summons.

Analysis: A money-laundering inquiry must be founded on a scheduled offence. The FIR relied upon was registered before the ECIR and had not been quashed; the stay of proceedings as against a person only temporarily eclipses the proceedings and does not efface them. The principle concerning reliance on predicate FIRs registered after an ECIR was therefore inapplicable. References to subsequent FIRs did not alter that position.

Conclusion: The stayed predicate FIR did not invalidate the summons, and the references to later FIRs afforded no basis to set them aside.

Issue (ii): Whether the summons should be invalidated for want of particulars and violation of natural justice.

Analysis: The ordinary requirements of a reasoned notice require disclosure of the purpose of summoning, a nexus between the material sought and the money-laundering inquiry, and notice of the consequences of default, consistent with the principles of natural justice and Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. However, the exceptional complexity of an inquiry under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 moderates the extent of disclosure: absence of full particulars does not by itself vitiate a Section 50 summons where the enforcement authority can demonstrate the grounds and nexus before the Court without disclosure that would frustrate the inquiry. The summons identified the ECIR, and requests concerning unavailable documents or additional time could be made to the summoning authority.

Conclusion: The summons were not invalidated for want of particulars; the petitioners are required to attend, furnish available information and documents, and may seek reasonable time for further production.

Final Conclusion: The money-laundering inquiry may proceed, with any request for additional time to furnish material requiring consideration before further action.

Ratio Decidendi: A summons under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 is not vitiated merely because it does not disclose full grounds, where its nexus with a lawful money-laundering inquiry can be substantiated without compromising the inquiry.

Issues: Whether the impugned central excise tax demands, including interest and penalty, survive after approval of the assessee's resolution plan under the insolvency process.

Analysis: The approved resolution plan addressed financial and operational debts and was affirmed in appellate insolvency proceedings. The tax demands forming the subject matter of the impugned proceedings consequently stood extinguished and could not survive.

Conclusion: The impugned tax demands, including interest and penalty, do not survive.

Issues: Whether the delay in filing the statutory appeal against cancellation of GST registration should be condoned so that the challenge to tax computation may be adjudicated on merits.

Analysis: The appellate authority had rejected the appeal solely as time-barred and had not examined the computation of tax. The parties agreed that, upon condonation of delay, the petitioner could contest all components of tax computation before the appellate authority. Applying the remedial approach adopted in analogous GST-registration cancellation matters, an effective opportunity for merits adjudication was warranted.

Conclusion: The delay was condoned and the revived appeal was directed to be heard on merits, with an opportunity of hearing to both sides.

Issues: Whether revision under section 263 was valid where the Assessing Officer allowed section 11 exemption after Form 10B was furnished belatedly but before completion of reassessment, and the CBDT subsequently rejected condonation of delay under section 119(2)(b).

Analysis: Revision under section 263 requires the assessment order to be both erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue. A permissible view adopted after enquiry cannot be displaced merely because the revisional authority prefers another view. Form 10B was available before completion of reassessment, and scrutiny notices and supporting material demonstrated that enquiries had been undertaken. The legal consequences of delayed filing of Form 10B admitted of a liberal, substantive approach in appropriate circumstances; hence, allowing exemption was a legally plausible view. The later rejection of condonation did not retrospectively render that view unsustainable. Any perceived deficiency was not a complete lack of enquiry, and no specific factual or legal error in the assessment was established.

Conclusion: The cumulative conditions for revision were not satisfied. The allowance of exemption was based on a legally plausible view, and revision under section 263 was invalid.

Issues: Whether reassessment for AY 2020-21 could be initiated on the basis of information concerning a land-sale transaction undertaken in FY 2020-21, relevant to AY 2021-22.

Analysis: The information forming the basis of the proceedings, the order under Section 148A(3), and the Revenue's affidavit consistently recorded that the sale transaction occurred in FY 2020-21. That transaction was relevant to AY 2021-22 and had no bearing on the determination of income for AY 2020-21. Consequently, there was no information suggesting that income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment for the year sought to be reopened, and the statutory precondition for initiating reassessment was absent.

Conclusion: Reassessment for AY 2020-21 based on information relating to FY 2020-21 was invalid; the impugned reopening proceedings were quashed.

Issues: Whether the final instalment tendered by cheque before the stipulated date, but credited after that date, qualified for deemed timely payment under Circular No. 15/2019 dated 12.07.2019.

Analysis: The circular treats payments tendered through cheque, RTGS, or electronic transfer by 03.10.2017 and credited by the bank by 05.10.2017 as having been paid by the due date of 30.09.2017. The factual prerequisites concerning tender of the cheque and date of credit remained to be verified by the authority; no final entitlement was adjudicated.

Outcome: The authority was directed to verify the relevant payment dates and grant the benefit of the Income Declaration Scheme, 2016 if the circular's conditions were satisfied.

Issues: Whether the notice issued under Section 148 for Assessment Year 2015-16 on 04.04.2022 was barred by limitation, rendering the consequential reassessment invalid.

Analysis: The first proviso to Section 149(1) preserves the limitation applicable under the earlier regime for assessment years beginning on or before 01.04.2021. The settled position for Assessment Year 2015-16 is that a notice under Section 148 issued on or after 01.04.2022 is time-barred. Issuance of a notice under Section 148A(b) within the earlier period does not validate the subsequent notice under Section 148 issued after expiry of the applicable limitation period.

Conclusion: The notice under Section 148 dated 04.04.2022 was time-barred; the consequential reassessment proceedings and assessment order were quashed.

Issues: Whether CENVAT credit is admissible for 1%/2% additional duty of customs paid on imported coal under the applicable customs exemption notification despite the restriction on credit of excise duty under the proviso to Rule 3(1)(i) of the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004.

Analysis: Rule 3(1)(i) concerns credit of specified duties of excise and its proviso restricts such credit where the prescribed central excise exemption is availed. Rule 3(1)(vii), however, independently permits credit of additional duty of customs equivalent to the enumerated excise duties. The imported coal attracted additional duty of customs under the customs notification; it was not cleared on payment of excise duty after availing the central excise exemption. The restriction attached to Rule 3(1)(i) could therefore not be imported into Rule 3(1)(vii).

Conclusion: CENVAT credit of the 1%/2% additional duty of customs paid on imported coal is admissible, in favour of the assessee and against the Revenue.

Issues: Whether an assessment order founded on notices uploaded only on the GST portal, without service through registered post, is invalid for breach of the principles of natural justice.

Analysis: The notices and hearing intimations were hosted under the portal's "View Additional Notices and Orders" tab, without physical service through RPAD. SMS and email reminders did not cure the absence of effective service, particularly where service through RPAD was required or advised in addition to electronic communication. The omission deprived the assessee of a meaningful opportunity to file objections and produce supporting records before the assessment was made.

Conclusion: The assessment order was vitiated by breach of the principles of natural justice owing to ineffective service of the statutory notices and hearing intimations.

Issues: Whether a contractor under a fixed-price contract entered before the introduction of GST is entitled to reimbursement of GST incurred during contract performance, and the extent of such reimbursement.

Analysis: The contractual clauses required the quoted rates to include duties and taxes applicable at the time of bidding and fixed those rates for the contract duration. GST came into force after execution of the tender and agreement and could not have been factored into the bid price. The project authorities had accepted the validity of GST reimbursement. GST was treated as an indirect tax under Section 15 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. However, VAT remained payable under the contract, and the GST reimbursement required adjustment by considering the differential between VAT and GST applicable to goods supplied after 14 December 2017.

Conclusion: The contractor is entitled to GST reimbursement only after recalculation accounting for the applicable VAT and the differential between VAT and GST.

Issues: Whether grounds were established under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for securing the disputed refund amount pending arbitration.

Analysis: Section 9 permits interim measures to secure the amount in dispute, but such relief requires more than a disputed monetary claim and must be justified by circumstances indicating that enforcement of a future award may become difficult. The registered deed of cancellation, the cheque issued for the identified principal amount, and its dishonour for insufficient funds prima facie supported the claim. The respondent's financial and contractual disputes, negligible disclosed bank balances, pending enforcement proceedings, and assignments of redevelopment rights collectively created a genuine concern regarding recoverability. The measure sought would only preserve the disputed amount and would not determine the underlying liability, which remains for arbitral determination. The balance of convenience favoured preservation of the amount.

Conclusion: Interim security of the identified principal amount by deposit was warranted pending arbitration, without adjudicating the parties' substantive rights or liabilities.

Issues: Whether a shortage of Cenvat-credit availed MS ingots, without corroborative evidence, establishes clandestine removal and justifies a duty demand.

Analysis: Clandestine removal is a serious charge requiring sufficient tangible and corroborative evidence. Mere shortage of inputs does not, by itself, establish clandestine removal. No evidence of transport, sale, buyer transactions, monetary consideration, or financial flow-back was produced to connect the input shortage with illicit removal. The facts could, at most, indicate improper accountal of inputs.

Conclusion: The allegation of clandestine removal was not established and the duty demand based solely on the input shortage could not be sustained.

Issues: Whether differential National Calamity Contingent Duty on chewing tobacco for the post-GST period could be demanded by applying MRP-based valuation under Section 4A of the Central Excise Act, 1944 pursuant to Notification No. 49/2008-CE (N.T.) dated 24.12.2008.

Analysis: The settled position applicable to the disputed period was that the MRP-valuation mechanism under the notification was not an operating provision after 01.07.2017, as the notification continued to refer to the repealed Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 and was not correspondingly amended. The settled position had also been affirmed on appeal.

Conclusion: The differential NCCD demand founded on Section 4A MRP-based valuation for the disputed period is unsustainable.

Issues: (i) Validity of State GST adjudication and rectification orders for a period for which Central GST proceedings had already been initiated; (ii) Validity of the ex parte Central GST adjudication order made without a fresh communicated hearing after the dates previously fixed.

Issue (i): Validity of State GST adjudication and rectification orders for a period for which Central GST proceedings had already been initiated.

Analysis: The Central GST show-cause notice had been issued before the State GST notice for the same period. The later State GST adjudication could not stand alongside the first-initiated Central GST proceedings, and the rectification order consequential to that adjudication also could not survive.

Conclusion: The State GST adjudication order and consequential rectification order were invalid and were set aside, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Validity of the ex parte Central GST adjudication order made without a fresh communicated hearing after the dates previously fixed.

Analysis: Natural justice requires an effective opportunity of hearing before adjudication. Although dates had earlier been fixed and a reply had been filed, the order was passed substantially later without communicating a fresh hearing date, resulting in ex parte adjudication without an effective opportunity of hearing.

Conclusion: The Central GST ex parte adjudication order was invalid for breach of natural justice and was set aside; a fresh hearing and speaking order were required, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: For the same taxable period, first-initiated Central GST proceedings prevail over later State GST adjudication, while any fresh Central GST determination must follow an effective hearing and a reasoned decision.

Issues: Whether an appeal against cancellation of GST registration was time-barred where the original order was only uploaded on the GST portal and was not communicated to the affected person in the prescribed manner.

Analysis: Section 107(1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 makes the three-month period for appeal run from communication of the decision or order. Section 169(1) prescribes the modes for service of an order. Since the Appellate Authority may condone delay only for the limited additional period stipulated by Section 107(1), effective communication of the order is mandatory for commencement of limitation. Uploading the order on the common portal, without service in accordance with the prescribed modes, does not amount to communication for this purpose. The exclusion of Section 5 of the Limitation Act reinforces the requirement of strict compliance with the statutory procedure for service.

Conclusion: Limitation for filing the appeal had not commenced merely upon upload of the cancellation order on the GST portal; the appeal could not be rejected as barred by limitation, and the delay was liable to be condoned for adjudication on merits.

Issues: Whether a confiscation order passed on the same day as the show-cause notice, despite the notice allowing seven days for filing a reply, violated the requirement of an effective opportunity of hearing.

Analysis: The notice granted seven days for submission of a reply, but the confiscation order was issued on the date of service itself, before expiry of that period and without any written objection having been filed. A direction to appear on the date of issuance did not afford a real and reasonable opportunity to respond. Payment made to secure release of detained goods and conveyance could not constitute admission, acquiescence, or waiver of the right to contest the demand. The appellate finding that the appellant had participated in the proceedings was inconsistent with the confiscation order, which recorded that no objections had been filed.

Conclusion: The confiscation order, consequential demand order, and appellate order were set aside for breach of principles of natural justice, and the matter was remanded for fresh adjudication after allowing a written reply and personal hearing.