Failure to verify tax deduction at source compliance on remuneration and hire expenses incurred for motion-picture production can render an assessment erroneous and prejudicial to Revenue interests. The claimed expenditure required examination of the extent of TDS deduction and deposit, while an assertion that substantial expenditure represented reimbursements required supporting records and evidence. In the absence of such verification, revisional intervention and a fresh assessment were warranted. The TDS-related expense issue was to be reconsidered after giving the assessee an opportunity of hearing.

Completion of investigation, filing of the charge-sheet, framing of charges and commencement of trial remove the need for custodial interrogation, supporting grant of anticipatory bail. Bail may be granted subject to conditions set by the Investigating Officer, continued cooperation with the investigation and furnishing bail bonds before the jurisdictional court. On these grounds, the refusal of anticipatory bail was set aside and anticipatory bail was granted.

Bail may be granted after filing of a charge-sheet where no further custodial interrogation is required. In allegations concerning unrecorded dry-fruit transactions and issuance of tax invoices, release on bail was directed subject to conditions imposed by the jurisdictional court. The accused was also required to appear before that court within two weeks. The material highlights completion of investigation and absence of a continuing custodial need as relevant considerations for post-charge-sheet bail.

Availability of a statutory appellate remedy against GST registration cancellation and rejection of revocation ordinarily precludes adjudication of factual disputes in writ jurisdiction. Appeals lay against both orders; therefore, factual contentions remained open for determination by the appellate authority. Where the revocation-rejection order was undated but served on 22 August 2026, the service date was directed to be treated as the order date for pursuing the appellate remedy. The taxpayer was permitted to file appeals against both orders within two weeks, for expeditious disposal.

Accumulated input tax credit refunds under an inverted duty structure depend on the tax rates applicable to supplies, not on whether the registered person is a manufacturer or trader. A circular addressing accumulation caused by a GST rate reduction on the same goods does not exclude refunds for finished apparel supplied at an unchanged rate; higher-taxed inputs may remain eligible under the prescribed formula. Refunds must be computed tax-period-wise, and period-specific calculation satisfies that requirement. Verification must address ineligible credit, invoice reconciliation and credit relating to zero-rated supplies; unsupported objections do not displace findings based on examined records. The refund claims were sustained and the Revenue appeals dismissed.

Rule 29 compliance for additional evidence required fresh examination where an affidavit accompanying Paper Book No. II-A expressly sought permission and the materials were prima facie available in the Tribunal's records. The dismissal of the related rectification application was partly set aside and remitted for determining whether the paper book had been properly filed under Rule 29, whether its contents were relevant to the appeal, and any consequential relief. Findings concerning the other paper book and remaining grounds remained undisturbed.

Under reassessment procedure, a scrutiny notice must be issued only after the taxpayer files a return in response to a reopening notice. Issuing the scrutiny notice before that return is filed makes the notice invalid and cannot cure the statutory defect. Without a valid scrutiny notice, the reassessment order is invalid. Reassessment orders founded on prematurely issued scrutiny notices are therefore liable to be set aside, and appeals challenging their invalidation fail where no further question of law arises.

Rule 68B's amended recovery period applies only where the original limitation period remained alive when the amendment took effect; recovery for 2007-08 and 2008-09 was therefore barred, while proceedings for 2009-10 to 2011-12 remained timely. Service on the defaulting firm sufficed for sale of its assets, particularly where partners received copies and participated; individual notice is required where recovery targets a partner's personal assets. Auction valuation was not defective because sale prices exceeded guideline and partner-declared market values, and revised reserve prices alone showed no undervaluation. Third-party funding of demand drafts did not invalidate compliant auction payments. The recovery auction was confirmed and the sale certificate was to issue to the purchaser.

Penalty under section 271(1)(c) cannot rest on a disallowance of business interest on secured promissory notes once the underlying quantum disallowance has been reversed. Interest on those notes was treated as incurred for business purposes and therefore not deductible only on an unsustainable basis. The Tribunal's deletion of penalty was upheld because the issue was initially debatable and the quantum position later attained finality. With no surviving basis for the disallowance, the penalty could not continue, and the Revenue's appeals were dismissed.

Customs-duty refund limitation for provisionally assessed duty runs from communication of the final assessment order to the person entitled to claim refund, rather than from the order's date. A limitation period cannot begin before the claimant has actual or constructive knowledge of the order creating the remedy. Revenue must establish service through the prescribed statutory mode; mere despatch without proof of delivery is insufficient. In the absence of Revenue evidence of despatch or delivery, and with unrebutted postal evidence of receipt, the refund claim was treated as filed within the one-year period and remained eligible for consideration.

Penalty for cash receipt of immovable-property sale consideration requires foundational satisfaction during assessment proceedings that section 269SS was contravened and that penalty proceedings should be initiated. The Joint Commissioner's separate authority to impose penalty cannot cure the absence of this recorded satisfaction through a later show-cause notice. Where the assessment order contains no finding of contravention or indication of proposed penalty proceedings, subsequent initiation lacks jurisdiction; participation by the assessee does not validate it. The penalty under section 271D was consequently quashed, while the alternative reasonable-cause plea remained open.

Inadvertent filing of the concessional-regime option form by a credit co-operative society does not, by itself, require assessment under that regime where the return was filed under the old regime, claimed the statutory deduction available to credit co-operative societies, and expressly stated that no concessional-regime option was exercised. The filing was not treated as an attempted withdrawal of an option after filing a return under the new regime. Processing the return under the concessional regime and disallowing the deduction were unjustified; the appellate order was set aside and the deduction claim was accepted.

Penny-stock long-term capital-gain claims may fail despite demat, exchange, banking and securities-transaction-tax records where abnormal price movement, operator material and layered purchaser funding establish accommodation entries under the test of human probabilities; related commission additions may consequently stand. Exempt-income expenditure disallowance requires examination of all exempt income, including claimed long-term gains, and may require recomputation. A loose-paper entry cannot be added to a person not named or supported by material, though it may be considered in the attributable family member's assessment. For unsecured loans, established identity alone does not prove creditworthiness or genuineness. Confirmed foreign-account sources can defeat additions absent contrary material. Concealment penalties are invalid where notice does not specify the applicable charge.

Compulsorily convertible debentures, despite their hybrid features, retain their character as debt until conversion into shares. Transfer-pricing authorities cannot treat such instruments as equity solely from their features and fix the arm's length price of related interest at nil. Debt-to-equity recharacterisation is contemplated under Chapter X-A only after an impermissible avoidance arrangement is declared through the prescribed procedure. As no such procedure was invoked, the recharacterisation and resulting transfer-pricing adjustment were deleted, and the appeal was allowed.

Arm's-length pricing of interest on 30-year non-convertible debentures cannot rest on an unsupported minimum-tenure filter under the comparable uncontrolled price method, particularly where tenure does not uniformly determine coupon rates; the transfer-pricing adjustment was deleted. Interest limitation for debt payable to non-resident associated enterprises must exclude interest paid to non-associated enterprises and prevent duplicate disallowance of interest already affected by transfer pricing; recomputation and consequential relief were directed. Classification of assessment adjustments under the appropriate head of income requires verification of the computation and records. A challenge to penalty initiation is premature where no final penalty order is under appeal.

Section 167B, which applies the maximum marginal rate where beneficiaries' shares are indeterminate, does not apply to public charitable trusts or organisations. Their income is chargeable at normal rates notwithstanding uncertainty regarding beneficiaries' shares. Application of this principle requires verification of the trust deed, rectification application, return of income and original assessment order. Following verification, the tax liability should be computed at normal rates and consequential relief granted where due.

Reassessment proceedings require the Assessing Officer to furnish recorded reasons on the taxpayer's request and dispose of objections before continuing the reassessment; non-compliance renders the reassessment unsustainable. For alleged bogus long-term capital gains, contemporaneous banking and demat records, contract notes, securities transaction tax evidence, and proof of share acquisition and sale can establish transaction genuineness. General investigation material or suspicion, without cogent evidence linking the taxpayer to accommodation entries or cash payments to an entry provider, cannot displace that evidence. Additions for unexplained share-sale proceeds and consequential alleged commission were deleted.

Tax deduction at source on leave travel concession reimbursements involving a foreign travel leg was not required where operative interim High Court directions restrained such deduction. Although the foreign travel component was not exempt, the assessee-bank was bound to comply with the interim directions and could not deduct tax contrary to them. Non-deduction during the period those directions remained operative therefore did not render the bank an assessee in default. Consequent demands for tax and interest were deleted.

Section 56(2)(x)(b), introduced by the Finance Act 2018 and applicable from Assessment Year 2019-20, operates prospectively. It cannot tax the difference between purchase consideration and stamp value where an immovable-property purchase agreement was executed in 2013 and substantial consideration was paid through banking channels before the provision was inserted. On those facts, the stamp-value-difference addition was deleted and the appellate order sustaining it was set aside.

Assessment issued in the name of an amalgamating company that had ceased to exist, after the Revenue had been informed of the amalgamation, constitutes a jurisdictional defect rather than a procedural irregularity. Section 292B does not cure this defect, and participation in assessment proceedings does not create an estoppel against law. The assessment was quashed as void ab initio on the additional jurisdictional ground, while the remaining merits grounds were left open as academic.