Intermediaries had to publish user-facing policies prohibiting unlawful, harmful, infringing, deceptive, malicious and security-threatening content. They could not knowingly host, publish, transmit or modify prohibited information. On acquiring knowledge or receiving qualifying written notice from an affected person, an intermediary had to disable the information within thirty-six hours and preserve associated records for at least ninety days. Further obligations included reasonable security practices, cyber-security incident reporting, lawful assistance to authorised agencies, restrictions on technical circumvention, and grievance redressal within one month.

Goodwill arising from an amalgamation, representing consideration paid above the net value of acquired assets, falls within depreciable intangible assets. Business or commercial rights of a similar nature are included within the statutory category of eligible intangible assets for depreciation. Depreciation may therefore be claimed on amalgamation goodwill, subject to appropriate quantification. Where entitlement to depreciation on the same goodwill has already been recognised for an earlier assessment year, the relevant-year depreciation is to be computed consistently with the earlier directions.

Intermediaries must remove or disable access to unlawful information within thirty-six hours of actual knowledge under section 79(3)(b). Actual knowledge can arise only from a competent court order or a reasoned written intimation issued by an authorised officer of prescribed seniority. Each intimation must identify its legal basis, the unlawful act, and the precise online location of the material; police-issued intimations require a specially authorised senior officer and all intimations undergo monthly necessity and proportionality review.

Transfer-pricing benchmarking of captive, low-risk investment-advisory services requires comparables to be functionally similar and to meet consistently applied export-turnover and service-revenue filters. Companies involved in securities trading, merchant banking, corporate finance, fund-based or NBFC activities, debt syndication, private equity, or capital-market operations, particularly where segmental data are unavailable, are unsuitable comparables. Unchanged facts across assessment years support consistent comparable selection. A management-consulting company previously accepted as comparable remains includible where no material factual change exists and its operating margin falls within the statutory tolerance range of the tested party's margin.

Intermediaries enabling synthetic-content functions must deploy reasonable and appropriate technical measures, including automated tools, to prevent unlawful synthetic material. Permissible synthetic content must carry a prominent visual or audio disclosure and, where technically feasible, permanent provenance metadata or another technical mechanism, including a unique identifier. Significant social media intermediaries must obtain user declarations before publication, verify them through proportionate technical measures, and clearly label content confirmed as synthetically generated. Knowingly permitting, promoting, or failing to act upon non-compliant synthetic content constitutes a failure to exercise due diligence.

Corrigendum to G.S.R. 32(E) corrects the year appearing in line 13 of the notification dated 18 January 2006. The reference to "2005" is substituted with "2006".

Digital signature hash standards under rule 6 of the Information Technology (Certifying Authorities) Rules, 2000 are amended by replacing the reference to MD 5 and SHA-1 with SHA-1 and SHA-2. The amendment takes effect upon publication in the Official Gazette.

The amendment substitutes the requirement to execute an agreement with the Controller in rule 16(2)(b) with a requirement to give an undertaking to the Controller. It recasts the prescribed obligation from an agreement-based arrangement to an undertaking-based commitment and takes effect upon publication in the Official Gazette.

Digital Signature Certificate applications in the Individual category require Form A for Government and Banking Sector subscribers and Form B for other subscribers; other applicant categories remain unchanged. Form A requires applicant, certificate, identification and, where applicable, device details, together with organisational certification and authorisation. Form B requires applicant, certificate, address, device details where relevant, and identity and residence proof as required by the Certifying Authority. Both forms require personal completion, in-person submission, and supporting documents prescribed in the Certificate Practice Statement; incomplete or inconsistent applications may be rejected.

CSR is grounded in trusteeship and in companies' responsibilities to employees, communities and the environment, rather than shareholders alone. The framework includes the Unspent CSR Account, multi-year projects, certification of fund utilisation and impact assessment. CSR is intended to leverage corporate resources, technology and expertise, rather than merely supplement public expenditure. Needs-based project selection, community participation, need and social-impact assessment, implementing-agency capacity, resource pooling and technology-enabled monitoring are emphasised to move from compliance and spending towards evidence-based transformation.

Section 16(2)(c) of the CGST Act requires more than routine or mechanical invocation against purchasing dealers for supplier non-payment of tax. Its application should rest on circumstances warranting action and a demonstrated purchaser link to the supplier's default. Relevant evidence includes invoices, e-way bills, receipt and use of goods, and payment to suppliers. Retrospective registration cancellation does not automatically justify invocation. Proceedings against the selling dealer, clear show-cause particulars, natural justice, and reasoned orders recording facts and law are emphasised.

Rule 96(10)'s omission without a saving or sunset clause removes the restriction from all pending proceedings. The Supreme Court applied the principle that deletion without saving treats an omitted rule as if it had not existed; the General Clauses Act does not preserve proceedings under an omitted rule, and a GST Council recommendation of prospective operation is advisory. Pending export refund claims, demands, recovery actions, and appeals founded solely on the restriction therefore lack a surviving basis.

Effective electronic communication of GST notices and adjudication orders requires more than formal portal publication. Proposed portal enhancements are expected to show the dates on which orders were passed and uploaded, and to record e-mail and SMS notification triggers. The measures are intended to provide taxpayers with a transparent chronology of issuance, uploading, and electronic communication, addressing concerns that notices or orders placed under an additional-notices tab may not effectively reach taxpayers.

GST classification disputes involving animal-feed nutritional supplements ordinarily require statutory appellate review where the issues depend on comparison of goods, show-cause notices, tariff entries, exemption conditions and evidence. Section 75(7) prevents confirmation of a demand on grounds or products materially outside the notice, but an alleged mismatch may require factual examination. Classification under Heading 2309 or Heading 3004 depends on composition, function, use, labelling and technical material. Section 107 enables review of classification, exemption, procedural fairness and computation issues, subject to appellate compliance and pre-deposit requirements.

GST arrest authorisation permits the Commissioner, by order and upon reasons to believe, to empower an officer to arrest a person who has committed specified offences. Arrest extends to prescribed categories of tax evasion, wrongful availment or utilisation of input tax credit, and wrongful refunds where the relevant monetary thresholds are exceeded; it also covers the specified offence under clause (f) and repeat offending. Every arrest must comply with criminal-procedure requirements.

Section 122(1A) reaches an unregistered individual who retains the benefit of specified invoice or input-tax-credit contraventions and causes the transaction to be conducted. Personal liability requires proof of both retained benefit and control, direction, or causation; designation or managerial participation alone is insufficient. The mechanism does not create automatic vicarious liability for directors or employees. Effective from 01.01.2021, it applies prospectively according to the date of each underlying transaction, not the date of the show-cause notice or adjudication.

Arbitral seat supplies the juridical framework and identifies courts with supervisory jurisdiction, whereas venue is only the physical hearing location. Where no place is expressly designated as the seat, hearings at a place for the arbitrator's convenience do not establish that place as the juridical seat. Jurisdiction over an arbitral award challenge depends on the agreed or determined seat and competent-court factors, including the place of contractual performance. A prior arbitrator-appointment proceeding does not, by itself, make its location exclusively determinative.

Writ jurisdiction generally cannot be used to challenge an order-in-original on merits after the statutory appellate remedy has lapsed. An efficacious statutory remedy must be pursued unless exceptional grounds, such as lack of jurisdiction or the deciding authority's incompetence, are established. Expiry of the appeal limitation period and any pre-deposit requirement do not justify bypassing the appellate process. Without a jurisdictional or competence-based challenge, a merits challenge is not maintainable in writ jurisdiction.

Vacant possession of unused SEZ premises is separated from monetary disputes arising under a sub-lease. Where the agreed final deadline for commencing operations was missed and the premises remained unused, the occupant must vacate after supervised inventory and removal of movables, enabling re-sub-lease to another entrepreneur. Claims for rent, maintenance, interest, damages, termination consequences, and infrastructure improvements require arbitral determination, with inventory and valuation assistance where necessary. Statutory questions concerning rent-control and SEZ regimes need not be resolved to release premises from continued non-use.

Section 39(1) scrutiny of a continuously registered dealer's returns requires prior issuance of the prescribed Section 35 notice; returns filed under Section 35(2) alone do not satisfy that condition. The five-year assessment limitation in Section 57 applies to Section 39 scrutiny and cannot be bypassed through that mechanism. Delegation of the Commissioner's Section 39 power to a Superintendent of Taxes requires an Official Gazette notification under Section 26 and Rule 3; internal orders or circulars are insufficient. Jurisdictional defects caused by absent notice or valid delegation permit recourse to writ jurisdiction despite the alternative remedy under Section 65.