Succession of a firm by a company satisfies section 47(xiii) where all assets and liabilities immediately before succession vest in the company and partners receive only company shares. Pre-succession capital withdrawals, asset sales and changes in partners' profit-sharing ratios do not, absent a statutory restriction, disqualify the succession or make it a taxable transfer. Search-assessment proceedings require incriminating material: routine board resolutions, no-objection certificates, legal notes, valuation reports and firm-constitution records generated in ordinary business are not incriminating. In their absence, assessment under section 153A is not maintainable, and the departmental appeal was dismissed.

Section 10(23FB) exemption is available to a venture capital fund registered as a trust where it operates separately auditable contributory schemes; each scheme need not obtain separate SEBI registration, although its private placement memorandum must be submitted. For the associated-company test, trustees' shares count only when held personally, not when held fiduciary on the Fund's behalf, so fiduciary holdings do not count toward the 15% threshold. A valid, uncancelled SEBI registration establishes the fund's statutory status; absent regulatory action over VCF Regulation breaches, the Income-tax Department cannot independently rely on alleged breaches to deny exemption. The Revenue's appeal was dismissed and the exemption sustained.

Section 270A penalties for under-reporting or misreporting are inapplicable where an Advance Pricing Agreement governs a modified return, the royalty transaction is fully disclosed, and the revised arm's-length royalty rate is reflected in total income. A CSR expenditure deduction claim should not attract penalty where supported by binding Tribunal precedent, particularly if the underlying addition is deleted. Likewise, an education cess claim made under then-prevailing High Court precedent should not be penalised merely because a later retrospective amendment requires its withdrawal. These principles preserve the APA framework and protect bona fide, disclosed claims subsequently displaced by legal change.

Transfer-pricing analysis of spare replacement services depends on the entity's actual functions rather than its formal designation. A business that merely supplies and holds spares under an associated enterprise's directions, without control over customers or resale prices, is characterised as a captive service provider rather than a trader. That functional characterisation supports use of the transactional net margin method with appropriate comparables to determine arm's length price, instead of the resale price method. The discussion addresses the distinction between TNMM and RPM where resale functions and pricing control are absent.

Modified returns of income filed following business reorganisation must be considered within the assessment proceedings already pending for the relevant assessment year. A draft assessment order does not conclude those proceedings, as the Dispute Resolution Panel process remains part of the assessment machinery until a final appealable order is issued. Section 170A does not extinguish the existing assessment or permit a separate, parallel scrutiny process for the modified return. A scrutiny notice issued without jurisdiction cannot support a transfer pricing reference; consequential Transfer Pricing Officer proceedings and notices founded on that scrutiny are unsustainable and liable to be quashed.

Reassessment under section 148A requires information that rationally and directly suggests income escapement; mere suspicion, a need for further scrutiny, or a verification objective is insufficient. The material and the taxpayer's response must be considered in a speaking order before a case is treated as fit for reassessment. Treating an entire trust's expenditure over several years as unexplained, despite accounts, bank records and vouchers, without identifying a false explanation or unaccounted amount, constitutes an impermissible roving or fishing inquiry. The reassessment order and consequential notice for the relevant assessment year were set aside.

Valid information for reassessment must point to income that escaped tax, not receipts disclosed, accounted for and taxed by the resulting company following a corporate demerger. Transactions appearing under the demerged entity's PAN because tax was deducted in its name before demerger sanction do not, without more, establish escapement. The extended reassessment period applies only where books, documents or evidence reveal previously undisclosed income meeting the prescribed threshold; material requiring only correlation of already disclosed transactions is insufficient. On these grounds, reassessment for the relevant assessment year was set aside as unsupported by valid information and time-barred.

Service of reassessment notices under section 148A(b) must provide the petitioner a genuine opportunity to respond. Where notices and the section 148A(d) order were sent to a secondary email address and a former residential address, a further response opportunity was warranted. The reassessment notice and order, assessment, consequential demands, penalty orders and recovery notice were quashed, while reassessment proceedings were restored and the petitioner was permitted to respond within the stipulated time. Merits remained open.

Acceptance of an alternative concession before the Tribunal precluded the assessee from challenging the resulting disallowance of agricultural loss relating to saplings. Because the assessee had accepted the disallowance as an alternative contention, the High Court declined the proposed questions and dismissed the appeals. The principle applied was that a party cannot pursue an appeal against an order reflecting its own concession.

Reassessment requires the prescribed preliminary inquiry and independent application of mind; reliance solely on external reports fails the statutory preconditions and renders initiation without jurisdiction. An approved corporate insolvency resolution plan precludes reassessment or revision of pre-effective-date claims that were not included in the plan, as such claims are frozen or extinguished under the overriding insolvency framework. Complete disclosure of relied-upon third-party statements and materials is necessary to afford a fair rebuttal opportunity; non-disclosure breaches natural justice. Reassessment must also commence within the Income-tax Act's prescribed limitation period; proceedings initiated after that period are invalid.

Transfer-pricing benchmarking of consultancy and civil-contracting services requires functional and financial comparability. Crux Consultants Pvt. Ltd. lacked publicly available audited financial statements and verifiable functional disclosures for the relevant year, preventing reliable analysis. Mahindra Consulting Engineers Ltd.'s multidisciplinary infrastructure and project-advisory operations, innovative project capabilities, and brand-related advantages materially differed from the assessee's profile. Kitco's substantial government and state-run project revenue and diversified activities, together with DRA Consultants Ltd.'s failure of the employee-cost filter, made all four unsuitable comparables. Their inclusion in the comparable set was set aside, while consequential matters remained open.

Turnover mismatches between service-tax and income-tax returns do not, by themselves, establish suppressed turnover where a real estate developer consistently recognises income under the percentage of completion method. Service tax may apply when customer advances are received, while income is recognised according to actual project completion. Audited books, tax-audit disclosures recording advances as liabilities, project-wise workings, and the absence of defects in the accounting method support the stated income recognition. On these facts, the alleged suppressed-turnover addition was deleted, and the consequential penalty for under-reporting of income did not survive.

Electronic uploading of Dispute Resolution Panel directions on the ITBA portal constitutes receipt in faceless assessment proceedings for calculating the period for a final assessment under section 144C(13). A subsequent physical or manual receipt by the Assessing Officer does not extend that limitation. Directions uploaded on 30 December 2025 made the final assessment completed on 19 February 2026 time-barred; it was treated as null and void, while the remaining grounds were left open.

Permissive possession granted to a developer solely to construct flats does not amount to legal possession in part performance of a contract. Such limited entry, unlike possession involving control over property contemplated for part performance, does not constitute a transfer for capital-gains purposes. Accordingly, no long-term capital-gains charge arose from the development agreement, and the related addition was deleted.

Transfer-pricing benchmarking of software development services applies an employee-cost-to-sales filter within 50% to 80%, requiring recomputation of the arm's length price on that basis. Comparables without segmental results, entities affected by an extraordinary amalgamation, and businesses performing materially different functions are excluded. Overdue associated-enterprise receivables are international transactions, but an interest adjustment under the CUP method requires identified segmental comparables, supporting material, and computation consistent with segmental trends; an unsupported adjustment is deleted. Working-capital differences require fresh examination under applicable transfer-pricing principles.

Section 92CD(3) requires an assessment for a year covered by a unilateral advance pricing agreement to be completed in accordance with that agreement when proceedings remain pending and a modified return is filed. For AY 2022-23, compliance with the UAPA and filing of the modified return meant that retaining the original transfer-pricing adjustment without considering the modified return was erroneous. The assessment must be completed after taking the modified return into account and applying the UAPA terms and conditions.

Tariff classification of nuts, bolts, washers, hand tools and allied goods for duty drawback had been conclusively resolved under Chapter Headings 7318, 8205 and 3926, rather than Heading 7308. Earlier decisions had settled the classification controversy and quashed comparable misclassification notices, leaving no issue open for reconsideration. The High Court consequently quashed the show cause notice alleging misclassification and allowed the writ petition.

Vitamin and enzyme premixes used as animal-feed additives are classifiable as preparations of a kind used in animal feeding under Customs Tariff Heading 2309, rather than as vitamins or pro-vitamins under heading 2936 or enzymes under heading 3507. Classification requires a comprehensive comparison of competing tariff entries and applicable HSN Explanatory Notes. Premixes containing vitamins, minerals, trace elements, appetisers, soya flour or meal, yeast and comparable constituents support classification within animal-feed preparations. Tribunal and Supreme Court precedent, together with a later Tribunal ruling on animal-feed additives, support this tariff treatment. Classification under the chemical and enzyme headings is unsustainable, with consequential relief following.

Statements recorded under section 108 of the Customs Act are admissible evidence, subject to natural-justice safeguards, including cross-examination where the statements are relied upon. Retraction of such statements requires supporting affidavits or documents; an unsupported retraction may not displace the evidentiary material. Liability for abetment of smuggling may rest on consistent statements from persons involved in import clearance when corroborated by financial transactions, emails, and witness testimony establishing control over the importing concern. Penalties for involvement in smuggling may be reduced where considered excessive, while findings on liability remain sustained.

Indian Refractory Mortar, being a mixture used as refractory mortar rather than a mineral employed in metallurgical extraction of chromium, does not meet Chapter Note 2 to Chapter 26. It is therefore classifiable under CTH 3816 0000, not CTH 2610 for chromium ores and concentrates. This classification removes the basis for export duty and consequential penalties.