Alternative statutory remedy under GST required disputes over reclassification of animal nutrition products from feed supplements to medicaments to be pursued through the appellate process. Alleged variance between the show cause notice and adjudication order, tariff classification, applicable notifications, and denial of hearing or cross-examination required factual examination and did not establish an apparent jurisdictional defect warranting writ intervention. The High Court dismissed the writ petition, holding that avoidance of the prescribed pre-deposit was not a basis to bypass appeal, while permitting the statutory appeal and excluding the writ period for limitation.

Writ jurisdiction against a common CGST penalty order is unavailable where alleged natural-justice breaches are unsupported by any specific denial of hearing or non-consideration of material. Challenges concerning limitation, the initiating officer's competence, and penalty liability require examination of the adjudication record and statutory provisions within the appellate process; the writ petitions were therefore not entertained. Pre-deposit relief available under an earlier High Court ruling may be claimed only where its factual conditions and stipulated requirements are satisfied.

Anticipatory bail under the CGST Act requires a communicated order authorising arrest. Summons issued during an inquiry into alleged ineligible input tax credit do not, by themselves, make the recipient an accused or establish a legally sustainable apprehension of arrest. The statutory foundation for pre-arrest protection is an arrest-authorisation order made after the required reasons to believe; pending investigation, searches, summons, and a contingent risk of arrest cannot replace that requirement. Petitions founded only on summons were premature where no such order had been passed and communicated, without addressing the underlying allegations or investigation.

Section 129 transit penalties may operate on a strict-liability basis, but still require proof of a statutory breach attracting the penalty. Where invoices, e-way bills and bilty documents matched the goods, the buyer was identifiable, and historical records supported use of its former address, a repeated consignee-address entry was treated as a bona fide documentary error. In the absence of evidence of a fictitious purchaser, diversion, clandestine unloading, value suppression, or tax evasion, the discrepancy did not establish a substantive transit violation. The transit penalty and consequential recovery were annulled, while tax lawfully payable on the supply remained unaffected.

Rule 138(3)'s third proviso permits Part B conveyance details to remain unfilled during the specified initial intrastate movement from a consignor's business premises to a transporter's premises for further transportation. The exception covers movement to a transporter's warehouse for consolidation before onward dispatch, rather than every short-distance journey. A permitted omission does not constitute an actual contravention attracting a Section 129 penalty, despite its overriding language. Appeals below the statutory monetary threshold may be admitted where a substantive issue concerning this exception and the resulting penalty warrants consideration on merits.

GST interest on self-assessed return liabilities is discharged only when the Electronic Cash Ledger is debited towards the identified liability; a sufficient unappropriated cash balance does not stop interest until belated GSTR-3B filing. The later Rule 88B(1) proviso excluding amounts credited by the due date and continuously retained in that ledger operates prospectively, not for earlier periods. Notice proceedings remain valid where the taxpayer received the demand basis and computation, gave detailed replies, and established no actual prejudice. Denial of a requested personal hearing breached section 75(4), but did not require remand where the record was complete, the remaining issue was legal, and no lost substantive opportunity was identified. Interest demands were sustained, subject to reconciliation to prevent double recovery; substantive refund claims failed.

Prescription of a timeframe for deciding applications to cancel or surrender duplicate PANs was referred to CBDT for initial consideration because no prior representation had stated the grounds for such a timeframe. The petitioner may submit a detailed representation; CBDT must decide it in accordance with law within eight weeks of receipt and communicate the decision.

Upper turnover filter of Rs. 200 crore for selecting software-development comparables in transfer-pricing analysis was treated as valid under precedent. The Revenue's challenge failed because the issue was already covered in favour of the taxpayer, resulting in dismissal of its appeal for the relevant assessment year.

GST refund disclosure in a tax audit report does not, by itself, establish taxable income. GST is a statutory levy collected and paid on behalf of the Government, and its refund represents a return of tax paid rather than income. Where refunded GST or IGST was not claimed as expenditure in the profit and loss account, it cannot be taxed solely because of its disclosure in the tax audit report. Allowability of the refund remains subject to examination of supporting records and applicable law.

Omission of the provision defining related-party purchases as specified domestic transactions, without a saving clause, removed the statutory foundation for penalties for failure to furnish Form 3CEB. Omission is distinguished from repeal: absent a saving provision, it does not preserve a right to initiate or continue proceedings based on the omitted provision. Penalties imposed for the relevant assessment years were therefore unsustainable.

Recovery of the balance disputed tax demand arising from transfer-pricing adjustments was stayed pending appeal, conditional on deposit of 20% of the outstanding demand after excluding proportionate demand relating to services claimed to have been rendered to an associated enterprise. The stay operates for 180 days or until appeal disposal, whichever occurs first, subject to meeting the deposit condition and cooperating in early appeal disposal. No merits determination was made on the transfer-pricing additions.

Section 144C requires a draft assessment order before a final reassessment order imposes a prejudicial variation on a non-resident eligible assessee. Following the amendment to the definition of eligible assessee, non-residents other than companies are expressly covered. The draft procedure allows the assessee to accept the variation or seek directions from the Dispute Resolution Panel. Direct issuance of a final reassessment order without a draft order deprives the assessee of that statutory remedy. Such non-compliance is a jurisdictional defect rather than a curable procedural irregularity, rendering the final reassessment order invalid.

Extended limitation for recovering wrongly exempted Special Additional Duty was sustained where, following amendment of the relevant Schedule, the exemption was unavailable and RMS-facilitated imports were cleared on the importer's declaration. The Special Additional Duty demand and its appropriation consequently remained valid. Interest under Section 28AA and penalty under Section 114A on the confirmed duty demand were unsustainable under affirmed precedent and subsequent consistent Tribunal decisions, and were set aside. The modified order retained duty recovery while removing interest and penalty, with consequential relief in accordance with law.

Cross-segment derivatives trading was treated prima facie as manipulative where connected companies moved futures prices through aggressive orders while holding larger, sentimentally opposite options positions and pre-positioned options orders. Artificial futures-price movements enabled favourable options execution, while cancelled, inexecutable futures orders added deceptive order-book depth. Repeated deliberate futures losses coupled with greater options gains were considered inconsistent with legitimate hedging, arbitrage, speculation, or rational profit-maximising conduct. Company directors responsible for business conduct faced a rebuttable presumption of vicarious liability and joint-and-several impounding of gains attributable to their companies. Interim directions restricted market access, preserved assets and gains, and required asset disclosures pending investigation.

Dismissal of employees through composite charge-sheet-cum-dismissal orders without a disciplinary inquiry breached natural justice, and the findings that termination was illegal remained undisturbed. Labour awards made before commencement of CIRP crystallised the employees' compensation entitlement and were not displaced by a subsequently approved resolution plan. Court-directed deposits securing those awards represented the employees' entitlement once the awards attained finality; failure to seek withdrawal before CIRP did not entitle new management to the funds. Employees could withdraw the deposited compensation and accrued interest, but had no further service-related claims.

Look Out Circulars constitute coercive restraints on the right to travel abroad and require a continuing factual basis; a pending money-laundering investigation alone does not justify their routine continuation. Relevant considerations include compliance with summons, provision of requested material, prior travel without evasion, absence of court-imposed travel restrictions, and lack of evidence of abscondence, non-compliance or obstruction. Travel-related safeguards may require advance disclosure of travel particulars, a valid email address and full cooperation with the investigation to ensure continued availability.

Provisional attachment of cash as proceeds of crime requires a demonstrated nexus between the property and the scheduled offence. Evidence of a double-trip mechanism, supported by the truck driver's statement, showed excise-duty evasion through repeated use of transport documents. The warehouse owner did not independently corroborate the claimed bank withdrawal or receipts from traders; a cash book retained in the owner's custody lacked independent evidentiary value. The absence of bank records, investigative material, and increased declared income established the nexus between the seized cash and illicit country-liquor transactions, so the cash was treated as proceeds of crime and the attachment remained in force.

Known departmental attachments in a SARFAESI auction constitute encumbrances where entered in the encumbrance certificate and restrict alienation, transfer and further charges. Rules 9(6) to 9(10) require disclosure of known encumbrances and allow delivery free of them only after deposit of the amount required for discharge. Secured-creditor priority over Government dues governs recovery of secured debt but does not displace that mandatory sale procedure. Accordingly, a disclosed departmental attachment cannot be removed from the encumbrance certificate, nor can an auction purchaser avoid the associated dues, unless they are discharged. A secured creditor is not functus officio while any part of its debt remains unrecovered and enforcement continues.

Possession of unused premises in a non-operational Special Economic Zone unit was separated from the parties' monetary claims to facilitate use by a viable entrepreneur. The applicable rent-control, Special Economic Zone, or public-premises eviction regime was treated as academic and left open. Claims for rent, maintenance, termination, improvements and damages were referred to arbitration, while the respondent was required to vacate after supervised removal of movables and evaluation of improvements.

Circumstantial evidence can sustain murder, conspiracy and destruction-of-evidence convictions only when the proved circumstances form a complete chain excluding every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. Electronic communications may be authenticated through certificates and responsible service-provider testimony despite non-prescribed certificate formats or authorised data transfers. Discovery pursuant to disclosure statements, deleted communications, unexplained contact patterns, conduct and false alibis may complete that chain. Article 161 clemency remains a distinct constitutional power, wider than statutory remission, permitting individual pardon, reprieve, remission or commutation on ministerial advice and unaffected by statutory remission mechanisms.