New Delhi, Sep 14 (PTI) The BJP on Monday attacked the Congress over alleged irregularities in a 2016 exam for the recruitment of panchayat development officers in Uttarakhand during its rule and demanded answers from Rahul Gandhi for what the ruling party termed as "massive betrayal" of students. This came after the Enforcement Directorate last week raided a personal assistant of former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat as part of a money laundering investigation linked to alleged irr... ... ...

Territorial jurisdiction in challenges to regulatory show-cause notices requires a substantial and material connection between the dispute and the forum. A company's registered office, payment arrangements, campaign management, or engagement of brand ambassadors do not confer jurisdiction when they have no direct bearing on the validity of notices issued elsewhere. Incidental or background facts cannot be presented as a cause of action. Forum conveniens favours the forum most closely connected with the regulator, the notice recipients, the alleged activity and the asserted statutory violations.

Postal network-based public-service delivery is being expanded beyond traditional mail carriage to support government programmes, citizen outreach and last-mile access. Doorstep banking, India Post Payments Bank, Aadhaar-related facilities, PAN services, Passport Seva services, digital pension services and Digital Life Certificates are intended to bring financial and essential services closer to citizens, including villages and households. Employee organisations' service, recognition, representation and pension-related concerns are subject to examination through the appropriate administrative process under applicable rules and legal and financial considerations.

Consumer Price Index-based retail inflation rose to 4.82 per cent in August, exceeding the Reserve Bank's median target and reflecting higher food prices. Wholesale price inflation also increased, led by higher food, manufactured-item, and fuel-and-power inflation. The inflation-targeting framework requires the Reserve Bank to maintain Consumer Price Index-based inflation at 4 per cent, subject to a tolerance margin of 2 percentage points on either side. Consumer price inflation is a material consideration for monetary policy rate decisions.

Section 35L(2) treats the determination of taxability or excisability for assessment purposes as a question relating to the rate of duty. The Finance (No. 2) Act, 2014 amendment is characterised as clarificatory and retrospective. Consequently, appeals from Tribunal orders involving taxability or excisability fall within the Supreme Court's exclusive appellate jurisdiction, rather than the High Court's jurisdiction.

Personal-guarantor insolvency applications require timely invocation of the guarantee and mandatory pre-filing service of Form B. A postal receipt alone, without tracking records or other evidence of delivery, does not establish service of a demand notice. Where initiation occurs more than three years after the purported invocation notice, the application is barred by limitation. Service of Form B before filing is mandatory; without proof of service and valid invocation, the personal guarantor does not meet the conditions for maintaining insolvency proceedings. These requirements govern maintainability under the personal-guarantor insolvency framework.

Interest earned by a co-operative society on deposits with a co-operative bank qualifies for deduction under Section 80P(2)(d) because the bank remains a co-operative society registered under applicable co-operative societies law. Section 80P(4), which denies Section 80P benefits to co-operative banks themselves, does not disqualify an investing co-operative society from claiming deduction on interest derived from investments with such a bank. The deduction is therefore available on the deposit interest.

Documentary evidence establishing the acquisition, holding and sale of shares through banking channels, demat records, allotment documents, contract notes, recognised stock exchanges and registered brokers supports the genuineness of long-term capital gains. Sale proceeds cannot be treated as unexplained money merely because of abnormal scrip-price movements or general investigation material where no independent enquiry disproves the transactions, establishes unaccounted-money movement, or links the taxpayer to price manipulation. Consistent treatment in comparable matters further supports acceptance of adequately evidenced transactions. The addition of share-sale proceeds as unexplained money was unsustainable and was deleted.

Section 80P(2)(d) permits a co-operative credit society to deduct interest or dividend income derived from investments with another co-operative society. Interest earned on deposits with co-operative banks falls within this deduction because co-operative banks are recognised as co-operative societies for that purpose under binding jurisdictional precedent. Accordingly, such interest income qualifies for deduction under Section 80P(2)(d).

Section 271(1)(c) treats concealment of income and furnishing inaccurate particulars as distinct penalty charges. A notice under Section 274 must clearly specify the precise charge against the taxpayer. Where the notice alleges only furnishing inaccurate particulars but the penalty order proceeds on both furnishing inaccurate particulars and concealment of income, the notice is defective. The resulting penalty under Section 271(1)(c) is unsustainable because the taxpayer was not properly informed of the charge to be answered.

Cash electricity payments to a wholly State-owned electricity board may be treated as payments to a government concern for Section 40A(3), removing the related disallowance. Depreciation on a multiplex and mall, together with interest on construction loans, requires fresh consideration where completion, occupancy and readiness-for-use evidence has not been addressed. The asset-related claims require de novo appellate determination after considering the additional evidence and affording a hearing, consistently with treatment of the issue in a subsequent year.

Interest earned by a co-operative society from placing surplus profits with the Treasury, scheduled banks and district co-operative banks remains attributable to its business of providing credit facilities to members. Prudent deposit of surplus funds in permitted banking institutions does not sever the connection between that interest income and the society's principal business. Interest received from the District Co-operative Bank and the Treasury therefore qualifies for deduction under section 80P(2)(a)(i) of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Section 14A read with Rule 8D permits disallowance only to the extent of expenditure relating to exempt income and cannot exceed the exempt income earned for the relevant assessment year. Where dividend income was exempt, the disallowance was restricted to that income rather than the higher amount computed under Rule 8D. The Explanation inserted by the Finance Act, 2022 was prospective and did not apply to assessment year 2013-14. This confines the disallowance to the amount of exempt income for that year.

Reassessment after a completed scrutiny assessment cannot be used merely to revise the percentage of income estimated from commission receipts. Where the original speaking assessment considered the business and commission income and applied a 10% estimate, reopening without new material, solely to adopt a different estimate after allowing expenditure, amounts to a change of opinion. The Section 148 notice and consequential reassessment were therefore invalid and quashed.

Section 40A(3) does not apply to recorded cash withdrawals from a bank account because a withdrawal is not expenditure. Disallowance for those withdrawals was therefore deleted. Cash deposits recorded in the cash book and substantially traceable to corresponding recorded withdrawals have an explained source, requiring deletion of the unexplained-money addition. Turnover additions based on an arbitrary standard sale rate cannot stand where recorded sale rates vary and no evidence establishes unrecorded sales, suppression of turnover, or stock variation. Assessed income must be recomputed after excluding these additions.

Reassessment initiated beyond four years is invalid where share application money was specifically examined, verified through confirmations and books of account, and accepted in the original scrutiny assessment. Reopening on the same material constitutes a change of opinion unless recorded reasons identify fresh information and establish the assessee's failure to disclose fully and truly all material facts. As neither condition was met, the reassessment notice and consequential reopening were unsustainable and quashed.

Section 115BBE's enhanced tax rate could not be applied retrospectively to assessment year 2015-16 through revision proceedings. The 60% rate took effect from 1 April 2017 and was not part of the provision governing the earlier assessment year. A revisionary direction requiring its application for assessment year 2015-16 therefore lacked legal basis, rendering the revision order unsustainable and liable to be quashed.

Enhanced penalty for under-reporting arising from misreporting requires clear identification of the specific statutory instance of misreporting under Section 270A(9). Where the penalty order neither specifies nor makes unambiguously discernible the applicable clause of Section 270A(9), the basis for characterising under-reported income as misreported income fails. The penalty levied at the enhanced misreporting rate was therefore deleted.

Penalty proceedings for under-reporting of income under section 270A require clear identification of the applicable clause in section 270A(2). Because that provision contains distinct statutory categories of under-reporting, notices issued under section 274 read with section 270A, subsequent show-cause notices, and the penalty order must specify the precise charge. Failure to identify the relevant clause leaves the charge indeterminate and invalidates the penalty notice and consequential penalty order, which are liable to be quashed.

Section 270A permits the enhanced 200% penalty for under-reported income only where misreporting is established within one of the exhaustive categories specified for that purpose. Disallowance of a deduction claimed for political contributions does not by itself establish misreporting. Where the assessment does not identify and prove the applicable statutory instance of misreporting, the enhanced penalty is unsustainable and must be deleted. Penal provisions require strict interpretation, preventing a higher penalty from being imposed merely because a deduction claim has been disallowed.