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.

Revenue neutrality may defeat an excise-duty demand alleging undervaluation where goods cleared to a sister unit are used as raw materials and the recipient takes full CENVAT credit of the duty paid. As valuation differences cause no net revenue loss in those circumstances, the demand lacks merit. The extended limitation period is also unavailable when clearance and valuation particulars have been disclosed in regularly filed ER-1 returns, because that disclosure negates suppression of facts.

Rule 8 governs valuation of excisable goods used for captive consumption in manufacturing other articles, even where part of the same goods is sold to independent buyers. Its substitution extended coverage to goods wholly or partly not sold and removed the differential valuation anomaly affecting identical captive clearances. The substituted provision operates retrospectively as a remedial measure. Accordingly, captive clearances are valued under Rule 8 rather than Rule 4 where some production is independently sold.

CENVAT credit for engineering, testing, recruitment, training, IT, professional, travel and captive-power-plant services is available where the services facilitate and are integrally connected with manufacturing operations. Before 1 April 2011, satisfaction of the inclusive limb of the input-service definition did not require a direct nexus with manufacture. After the amendment, credit remains available where services have a direct or indirect nexus with manufacture and clearance and do not fall within an exclusion. Captive-power-plant services remain connected with manufacture when substantially all electricity is used in production. Credit cannot be denied on grounds absent from the show cause notice, including unsupported allegations concerning ISD invoices or non-correlatable documents.

Clandestine-manufacture and under-invoicing allegations require legally admissible evidence and independent corroboration. Electronic records must satisfy the certification and production safeguards under Section 36B, while private or third-party records require a verified link to the assessee. Electricity consumption or alleged theft cannot establish unaccounted production without plant-specific scientific norms and evidence connecting consumption to quantified manufacture and clearance. Alleged production must also be physically achievable within installed plant capacity. Statements cannot prove their contents unless the mandatory procedure under Section 9D is followed. Without these evidentiary foundations, excise liability, interest, and penalty lack a sustainable basis.

Transport of coal in tipping trucks, with loading by contractors' pay loaders, does not constitute cargo handling service where the activity is merely shifting coal and does not involve an independently provided loading, unloading, packing or unpacking service. A service-tax demand cannot be sustained when the show-cause notice invokes a charging provision no longer in force and omits the applicable provision operative when the notice was issued. Reference to a later statutory provision does not cure reliance on the deleted charging provision. The proposed levy therefore fails both on taxable-service classification and on the validity of the charging basis pleaded in the notice.

Known statutory encumbrances disclosed in a secured-asset sale notice and sale certificate must be discharged before the purchaser can receive the property free from them. Rules 9(6) to 9(10) of the Security Interest (Enforcement) Rules require disclosure of known encumbrances and deposit of the amount needed to satisfy them; a purchaser with express notice cannot remove recorded departmental dues without payment. Priority of secured creditors over government dues does not displace those mandatory sale requirements. A departmental attachment restricting transfer, mortgage, or charge constitutes an encumbrance. Issuance and registration of a sale certificate do not end the secured creditor's statutory rights while its debt remains unrecovered and recovery proceedings continue.

Review petitions concerning clubbing of clearances for SSI exemption, lifting of the corporate veil, pervasive financial and management control, aggregation, suppression of material facts, and the extended limitation period were dismissed for lack of merit. The dismissal leaves undisturbed the treatment of interconnected entities and their clearances under the applicable SSI exemption framework.

For commercial or industrial construction services, the gross amount charged for service tax valuation excludes goods or materials supplied free of cost by the service recipient. Such supplies cannot be added to the assessable value unless legislation specifically requires their inclusion. The valuation principle therefore confines taxable service value to amounts charged for the taxable service, excluding the value of free-supplied materials.

Non-submission of a board resolution is a curable procedural defect that does not defeat the substantive right of appeal. Dismissal of a numbered appeal solely for that defect, without a defect notice and reasonable opportunity to rectify it, is impermissible. Statutory pre-deposit requirements may be met through amounts paid during audit or investigation before filing an appeal where those amounts are appropriated towards the confirmed demand. The first appellate authority must therefore adjudicate the challenge on merits after hearing the assessee and considering all available grounds.

Service-tax demand initiated through a show-cause notice served beyond the applicable limitation period, after allowing for the relevant pandemic-related extension, is unsustainable. A signing date does not establish timely service where postal records show booking after the permitted period. Further, a difference between VAT and ST-3 returns does not establish unreported taxable receipts when VAT-reported receipts correspond to payments disclosed across the relevant ST-3 returns. On those grounds, the service-tax demand, interest and penalties cannot be sustained.

Extended limitation for a service-tax demand requires fraud, collusion, wilful suppression, or misstatement. Regular ST-3 and ER-1 returns disclosed the trading activity, abatement claimed, and service-tax and excise-duty payments. Because these facts were available to the Department, suppression or misstatement could not be sustained; the extended period was unavailable and the show-cause notice was barred by limitation.

Service-tax demands for the pre-1 July 2012 positive-list regime require the show-cause notice to identify the applicable taxable-service category and statutory basis; aggregated receipt differences without classification do not provide a valid foundation for demand. For the negative-list period, liability must rest on the applicable charging provision, including Section 66B, rather than superseded positive-list provisions. Differences between ST-3 returns, audited financial statements and Form 26AS data alone do not establish wilful suppression or intent to evade tax. Without supporting verification or evidence of such intent, extended limitation, consequential interest and penalties cannot be sustained.

Actual costs recovered from foreign entities without markup may constitute reimbursable expenses rather than consideration for taxable services under the reverse charge mechanism. Invoices segregating taxable and non-taxable charges, transport and clearance records, and chartered-accountant certification can establish that air freight, ocean freight, and pure-agent charges were recovered at actual cost. Where no documentary evidence supports an alleged markup, the recovered amounts are distinguishable from taxable service consideration. The absence of a review challenge to the finding on the extended limitation period also remains relevant.

Provisional attachment of cash requires a sufficient nexus between the recovered funds and proceeds generated by unlawful activity. The material linked a liquor warehouse to a double-trip supply arrangement, repeated use of transport documents and excise-duty evasion. No independently verifiable bank withdrawal or contemporaneous trader receipts supported the cash's lawful source; cash-book entries and stock-register explanations did not independently corroborate it or exclude unrecorded transactions. The unexplained cash, alleged benefit from the transactions and evidence of duty evasion were treated cumulatively as establishing the nexus, resulting in continued provisional attachment as proceeds of crime.

Continued Look Out Circulars require material showing a genuine risk of evasion, non-compliance, abscondence, or obstruction; a pending money-laundering investigation alone does not justify restricting travel. The High Court found no flight-risk material where the petitioners complied with summonses, provided information, remained available, and completed foreign travel without impeding the investigation. As no trial-court travel restriction existed, the Circulars were quashed, subject to advance travel intimation, contact details, and continued cooperation with the investigation.

Resolution plans must satisfy statutory feasibility requirements through a complete and accurate information memorandum, particularly where the corporate debtor's essential land asset depends on regulatory approvals. Creditor claims require reconciliation with final determinations and recoveries, while a corporate guarantor obtains secured financial creditor status through subrogation to the amount paid. A plan cannot assume SEZ de-notification or land-use conversion without the lessor's consent and regulatory completion; omission of those processes impairs informed bidding. Commercial wisdom cannot cure material inaccuracies or replace reasoned consideration of statutory feasibility objections. Fresh expressions of interest must be invited on a corrected information memorandum under a newly appointed resolution professional.

Approved resolution plans bind governmental creditors and extinguish pre-CIRP claims not retained in the plan, applying the clean slate principle to government dues arising from export-obligation defaults. DEL orders issued during the statutory moratorium are void ab initio where they constitute adverse coercive action against the corporate debtor. Continuing DEL status to enforce extinguished pre-CIRP liabilities is incompatible with the binding effect of the approved plan, including where the government's operational-debt claim received nil treatment. Verification of new management credentials and action for independent fresh defaults remain permissible in accordance with law.