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Article By: - Sadanand Bulbule Dated:- 5-10-2026
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Goods and Services Tax - GST...
Input tax credit under Section 17(5)(d) depends first on whether capital infrastructure is immovable property, not on size, weight, or mere fastening to earth. Fastening for alignment, vibration control, balance, or safety does not alone make modular apparatus immovable. Equipment that can be unfastened, dismantled, and relocated without structural damage or loss of commercial identity may remain movable goods, so the threshold for the credit block is not met and ITC is considered under Section 16(1).
By: - Raghunandhaanan rvi
Import and export prohibitions may be absolute or conditional, with conditions capable of being required before or after clearance. Prohibited goods include goods whose import or export is barred under the Customs Act or another law in force, while restricted goods require applicable licences, authorisations, permits, or clearances and compliance with attached conditions. Contravention may lead to detention, seizure, confiscation, monetary penalties, redemption fine where permitted, licence action, prosecution, and imprisonment in serious cases.
By: - Raj Jaggi
Input tax credit remains conditional on actual payment of the charged tax to the Government; payment of the invoice value to the supplier does not alone establish that condition. Supplier non-payment, retrospective cancellation, return discrepancies and alerts may trigger inquiry but cannot automatically justify reversal. Before issuing a notice, the proper officer must identify the supplier, invoices, period and precise default, disclose relied-upon material, examine evidence of receipt and commercial reality, and address supplier-side recovery. The applicable tax-period framework governs reversal, re-availment and the effect of subsequent tax payment.
By: - DEV KUMAR KOTHARI
Condonation of delay in a Revenue income-tax appeal was granted for a 341-day delay attributed to an inter-state transfer of jurisdiction, reconciliation of judicial records, and multi-level administrative scrutiny. Applying a pragmatic approach to sufficient cause, the delay was treated as bona fide despite objections that government litigation receives no privileged limitation treatment. The article emphasises that respondents should test every stage of delay through documentary proof, particularly where electronic records and e-filing reduce the force of routine file-movement explanations.
By: - Vivek Jalan
Assessing Officers must follow Income Tax Appellate Tribunal determinations unless their operation has been suspended by a competent court. Where the Tribunal has determined that a non-resident has no permanent establishment in India and that particular fees are not taxable, the payer cannot be treated as in default for failure to withhold tax. The withholding obligation arises only where payments are chargeable to tax in India.
By: - Raj Jaggi
Additional court-fee liability on a State GST appeal may operate separately from the statutory pre-deposit required under Section 107. The fee must be supported by the applicable State legislation and notification in force when the appeal was filed; a later notification cannot ordinarily impose a new liability retrospectively. Non-payment of a lawful court fee is a curable procedural defect and should be addressed before merits review. Where the first appellate authority has not considered the tax dispute, substantive issues should ordinarily remain for first-appellate determination after payment and a proper hearing.
By: - Bimal jain
Section 76 requires amounts collected as tax to be remitted to the Government but sets no deadline for issuing a show cause notice, although an order must follow within one year of notice. The resulting reasonable-period inquiry is fact-dependent and can be examined in statutory appeal. Where detailed adjudication follows a taxpayer's reply and hearing, the alternative statutory remedy ordinarily remains the appropriate forum; writ intervention despite an available appeal is exceptional.
By: - Raj Jaggi
Taxability must be determined before input tax credit eligibility. A blocked-credit inquiry presupposes a taxable inward supply on which tax has been lawfully charged. Where an assignment is outside the charge of GST, denial or reversal of input tax credit cannot retain the economic burden of an invalid levy. The restriction on credit for construction of immovable property applies only where expenditure has a clear nexus with construction-related activity on the taxable person's own account. Acquisition of existing leasehold rights without construction does not satisfy that requirement merely because the rights concern land.
Bank merger does not invalidate a cheque or bar dishonour proceedings when the successor bank assumes the account.
Bank merger transfers the merged bank's assets, liabilities and customer accounts to the successor bank, so a cheque drawn on that account does not become invalid merely because the original bank ceases to exist. An endorsement that no such bank exists is insufficient, by itself, to negate the cheque where the successor bank has taken over the account. Allegations that the cheque was misplaced or the account closed require proof at trial and do not alone preclude proceedings for cheque dishonour under the Negotiable Instruments Act.
Transfer of right to use buses requires possession and effective control, excluding service-based bus-hiring arrangements from VAT.
Transfer of the right to use goods requires the transferee to receive possession and effective control. Hiring privately owned buses to a State transport undertaking did not meet that test where owners remained responsible for operating and maintaining the vehicles, supplied drivers, bore statutory and accident-related liabilities, and retained physical control. The undertaking's authority to prescribe routes and schedules regulated service performance but did not confer exclusive possession or control. The arrangement operated as a licence or transport service arrangement, not a deemed sale taxable under the Andhra Pradesh VAT Act.
CENVAT credit reversal is inapplicable to electricity generated from bagasse and supplied outside the manufacturing factory premises.
Electricity generated from bagasse and cleared outside the factory does not trigger the payment obligation under Rule 6(3) of the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004. Bagasse, being agricultural waste or residue rather than an outcome of manufacture, falls outside the scope of Rule 6. Accordingly, electricity generated from bagasse, including electricity wheeled to a State electricity distribution authority, is not subject to payment of 6% of its value.
CENVAT credit for taxed Business Support Services remains available where group-company support directly serves manufacturing operations.
CENVAT credit for service tax paid on Business Support Services received from a group company is available where common corporate and operational support has a direct nexus with manufacturing. Allocation of the provider's expenses among group entities without an independent profit element does not alter the taxable character or value of invoiced services where tax has been paid and accepted. Credit should not be denied at the recipient's end by recharacterising those services while the provider's tax assessment remains unrevised. On that basis, disallowance of credit and consequential demand and penalty are unsustainable.
Mandatory appellate pre-deposits are not excise duty, so duplicate deposits bypass duty-refund procedure and attract interest.
A mandatory appellate pre-deposit under Section 35F is not excise duty, so a duplicate deposit need not be claimed through the Section 11B refund procedure, which governs refunds of duty and related interest. Where duplicate credit is admitted and no bona fide basis exists for withholding it, the amount is refundable with interest at 12% per annum from the second receipt until payment, together with litigation costs.
Mistaken service-tax payments on exempt GTA services constitute refundable deposits, with compensatory interest for unlawful retention.
Service tax paid under reverse charge on exempt goods transport agency services, despite no tax liability, is treated as a revenue deposit made under a mistake of law rather than duty. The amount falls outside the statutory duty-refund mechanism and must be refunded; retaining it lacks constitutional authority. As the payment is a deposit, the statutory interest regime for duty refunds does not apply. Compensatory interest at 12% per annum is payable from each deposit date until refund.
Provisional attachment requires an original statutory foundation; later FIRs cannot retrospectively validate seizure, retention, or freezing measures.
Provisional attachment, seizure, retention and freezing measures must rest on the material, reasons to believe, complaint and application that originally grounded them. Later FIRs, an ECIR addendum or a subsequent prosecution complaint cannot retrospectively validate measures founded solely on an original FIR; they require an independent statutory basis. Quashing the original FIR does not itself eliminate every predicate offence where subsequent FIRs disclose such offences. Yet those FIRs cannot support confirmation of challenged measures unless they formed part of the original statutory foundation.
Uncrystallised development rights cannot support release or substitution of provisionally attached land without proven title and consideration.
Under the PMLA provisional-attachment regime, a developer relying on a joint development agreement must establish enforceable title and payment of consideration for the landowner's share before seeking release or substitution of attached land. Absence of a registered sale deed, proof of payment, or crystallised rights through legal proceedings left the developer with only an uncrystallised contractual interest. Transfers to plot purchasers and insufficient details of unsold plots further prevented proof of a subsisting proprietary share. The attachment therefore remained unaffected.
Equivalent-value attachment under PMLA can reach independently acquired property when scheduled offences and prima facie proceeds are established.
Under the PMLA, allegations involving IPC and Explosive Substances Act offences included in the Schedule can support money-laundering proceedings even where associated mining-law violations are not scheduled offences. Property may be attached as value equivalent to proceeds of crime regardless of its independent source or pre-predicate acquisition, while the affected person bears the burden to substantiate licit sources. Fair market value at acquisition or possession is the statutory valuation measure; use of guideline or current values does not necessarily defeat attachment where alleged proceeds are independently quantified. Reasons to believe require prima facie material linking assets to proceeds and a risk of alienation, not conclusive proof.
Company-name rectification requires holistic comparison: TOPLAD too nearly resembles TOPLAND, without proving likely consumer confusion.
Section 16(1)(b) of the Companies Act, 2013 requires a holistic assessment of whether a company name is identical with or too nearly resembles a registered trade mark. The inquiry is broader than a trade-mark infringement dispute and does not require proof of likely deception or confusion. Rival expressions should not be artificially divided into components merely because they share a common element. TOPLAD and TOPLAND are structurally and phonetically similar when considered as whole names, and omission of the letter "N" does not create sufficient visual or phonetic distinction in ordinary Indian-market pronunciation. TOPLAD therefore too nearly resembles TOPLAND, supporting rectification of the company name.
Optical transceiver classification: interface components are telecommunications goods, not complete Optical Transport Network products, because they lack system functions.
Optical transceivers that convert optical and electrical signals and operate as hot-pluggable interface components are distinguishable from complete Optical Transport Network products. They do not perform system-level functions such as framing, multiplexing, forward error correction, or operations, administration and maintenance functions. Their functional character therefore supports classification as other telecommunications goods under Customs Tariff Item 8517 7090, rather than under the entry applicable to complete Optical Transport Network products.
Tariff classification of DHA algae oil turns on its mixed fatty-acid composition, excluding the claimed customs exemption.
DHA algae oil containing DHA alongside palmitic acid and other saturated and unsaturated fatty acids is classified as edible vegetable oil under CTH 15159090. Under Rule 1 of the General Rules for Interpretation, classification follows the heading terms and Chapter Notes; a mixed fatty-acid oil is not a separate chemically defined compound under CTH 2916 merely because DHA is a constituent. Food-industry use does not alter classification. CTH 2106 is likewise inapplicable. Consequently, exemption under Notification No. 50/2017-CUS is unavailable, with differential duty, interest, redemption fine, penalties, and bank-guarantee appropriation sustained.