Section 74 penalties for excess input tax credit and irregular...

Section 74 penalties for excess input tax credit and irregular transitional credit require positive material proving fraud, wilful misstatement, or suppression with intent to evade tax; audit mismatches, record-based discrepancies, and mechanical allegations are insufficient. Where returns and credit declarations are available on the departmental portal and tax and interest are paid before a show cause notice without deliberate evasion, the payments fall within Section 73(5) read with Section 73(8). On those principles, the Section 74 penalties were deleted, and the pre-notice tax and interest payments were treated as voluntary payments. Departmental hierarchy alone also does not establish a real likelihood of institutional bias in statutory appellate proceedings.