CENVAT credit for duty-paid capital goods received and used in a manufacturing factory remains available where components are incorporated into a turnkey system under a composite works contract. Separate supply and erection orders may form a single works-contract arrangement, with property passing no later than incorporation, but this does not impose an ownership-at-receipt condition for capital-goods credit. Exclusion of the goods element when valuing works-contract services is a valuation mechanism, not a conditional exemption that blocks recipient credit. Extended limitation requires deliberate suppression or another specified culpable element; invoices, statutory records and returns without concealment do not establish it. Without wrongful credit availment or culpable conduct, interest and penalties do not arise.

Commission-agent services used to procure orders, dispatch manufactured goods from depots and collect sale proceeds are input services where the depot is the place of removal. Because depot sales remain connected with clearance of final products up to that place, the related service-tax credit qualifies under the CENVAT Credit Rules. Credit distributed by the head office through an Input Service Distributor is therefore admissible, making related credit disallowance, interest and penalty unsustainable.

CENVAT credit on moulds sent to job-workers under job-work challans remains admissible where the moulds, as capital goods, are returned after use and the procedure does not breach the CENVAT Credit Rules. Separate reversal of credit on PP granules for accounting purposes does not require reversal on moulds. Where reversal and re-availment would be revenue-neutral and create no double credit, denial of credit is unwarranted. Extended-period recovery is unsustainable where departmental knowledge of the transactions exists and suppression with intent to evade excise duty is not established.

Exemption for captively consumed inputs under Notification No. 52/2002 was considered in relation to whether waste, residue or refuse arising as a by-product was marketable and excisable. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeals challenging the Tribunal order, finding no good ground to interfere. The Tribunal's treatment of the exemption and excisability issue therefore remained undisturbed.

Surrender, policy discontinuation and foreclosure charges in life-insurance policies do not constitute consideration for the relevant taxable service and therefore fall outside service tax. Reinstatement charges, paid to restore and continue the insurer-policyholder relationship, constitute consideration for continuation of taxable service and remain chargeable to service tax. A claimed bona fide belief does not preclude the applicable penalty where a specialised insurer is aware of its tax obligations.

Road transportation performed without issuing consignment notes does not meet the statutory definition of a goods transport agency under the Finance Act, 1994. Transportation of goods by road is included in the negative list, except where the service is provided by a goods transport agency or courier agency. As no consignment notes were issued, the transport activity remained within the negative-list exclusion and was not liable to service tax. Consequently, the related tax demand, interest and penalty did not survive.

Promotional and market-survey services performed in India for a foreign principal qualify as export of services where they are provided from India and used outside India. For Category III services, the recipient's location and the place where the commercial benefit accrues determine export status, rather than the location of the underlying activities. Promotion undertaken exclusively for the foreign entity satisfies this test when that entity receives the business benefit, even if its goods are sold to Indian buyers. The services consequently support refund of service tax.

Service-tax refund claims governed by Section 11B, as applied through Section 83, cannot reopen an unchallenged self-assessment; the assessment must first be modified through the statutory process. A later Board clarification on exemption cannot itself alter completed self-assessments, and a representation cannot replace the statutory appellate remedy. Payment of a refund also requires proof that the tax incidence was not passed on to another person. Credit notes issued to educational institutions alone do not establish that the burden was not ultimately passed to catering-service recipients, and Rule 6 does not displace the unjust-enrichment requirement. Consequently, the claimed refunds were not payable.

Advance service tax paid and adjusted against later GTA liability remained available for adjustment despite failure to give the prescribed intimation, because procedural non-compliance did not negate the excess payment; the GTA demand and related penalties were set aside. TDS borne by the service recipient under foreign technical know-how agreements was not consideration received by the foreign provider and was excluded from the taxable value of IPR services; the related demand and penalties were set aside. Liability for ineligible CENVAT credit remained because the credit and reduced penalty were paid within the stipulated period, sustaining the demand, interest, appropriation and penalty.

CENVAT credit on motor vehicles could not be denied where the underlying activity was mining service but service tax had been incorrectly paid under Site Formation Service. Mining service entered the service-tax net only from 1 June 2007; therefore, the activity was not taxable during the disputed period under the stated classification. Service tax paid on that non-taxable activity was to be treated as reversal of CENVAT credit. As the tax paid exceeded the disputed credit, denial of credit was unsustainable and the cash amount paid under protest was refundable with applicable interest.

Ready-mix concrete produced through an automated batching process is treated as an excisable manufactured product, making a differential service-tax levy on its production unsustainable where service tax paid exceeds potential excise liability. For works contracts involving material supply, including recipient-supplied cement, taxable value must exclude the material component through the prescribed abatement. Receipts reported in Form 26AS cannot alone establish a differential service-tax liability; they must be verified as consideration for taxable services. Service-tax demands therefore require verified taxable consideration and correct works-contract valuation.

Railway works involving installation of OHE-mast bases, infrastructure construction and structural reconstruction qualify as original works where their composite, naturally bundled scope has a dominant construction character; repair labels or isolated repair elements do not alter that classification. The contracts were therefore exempt from Service Tax as railway original works. Extended limitation cannot rest on departmental delay in processing Form 26AS data already available through inter-departmental sharing. Without suppression or wilful misstatement intended to evade tax, the demand is time-barred, and associated interest and penalties lack foundation.

Service tax liability on commission-agent services depends on the date the underlying service is rendered, rather than the date commission is received. Transfer of DFRC licences completed before 09.07.2004 remained outside tax under Business Auxiliary Service and within the applicable exemption at that time. Later receipt of commission did not retrospectively alter taxability. Consequently, commission received after 09.07.2004 for services rendered before that date attracted no service tax, interest, or penalty.

Jurisdictional service-tax authorities have no statutory power to issue clarifications on a person's service-tax liability in response to representations. Chapter VA of the Finance Act, 1994 provides an advance-ruling mechanism only for qualifying applicants and does not create a separate clarification process. Taxability and registration must be determined through quasi-judicial adjudication, with an opportunity of hearing; an unauthorised clarification would bypass those safeguards. Liability for a relevant period may require examination of agreements, contractual relationships and statutory amendments. A clarification issued without statutory authority cannot bind parties or statutory authorities.

Provisional attachment under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 remained effective to the extent of quantified proceeds of crime arising from allegedly unauthorised Tramadol exports to Pakistan. No-objection certificates confined exports to their stated overseas destinations; emails, purchase orders, shipping records and payment details indicated that overseas entities acted as intermediaries, Pakistan was the intended destination, and that destination was concealed. Predicate offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 were scheduled offences for money-laundering purposes. Property value is determined by fair market value on acquisition or, if unavailable, possession; a current valuation report did not displace that statutory measure.

Under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, a bank-account freezing order need not itself disclose the recorded reasons to believe if those reasons and supporting materials are forwarded to the Adjudicating Authority in the prescribed sealed manner. Procedural compliance also requires a timely application to continue the freezing order and statutory notice. Whether frozen property represents proceeds of crime, including whether restraint should be limited to identifiable proceeds, is to be determined through adjudication after notice and hearing. Writ intervention is ordinarily unavailable while the statutory adjudication process and appellate remedies remain effective.

Interim stay of an insolvency professional's disciplinary suspension requires a prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable injury. Challenges to the Disciplinary Committee's competence and procedural validity required final adjudication and did not demonstrate manifest invalidity at the interim stage. Prima facie material concerning unrevised creditor claims, transfer charges collected without Committee of Creditors approval, and altered homebuyers' claims supported the disciplinary findings. Suspension prevented the professional from continuing as resolution professional; notifying the Committee of Creditors and appointing a replacement fell within the regulatory framework. Interim protection was refused because continued assignment was not a vested right and would effectively grant final relief while affecting stakeholders.

The Explanation to section 3(31) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code confines a security interest to rights in property arising from an agreement or arrangement between two or more parties, excluding interests created solely by operation of law. As a clarificatory provision, it applies to pending proceedings. A statutory first charge under the Gujarat Value Added Tax Act and pre-CIRP attachment measures therefore do not create secured debt; the related tax dues receive operational-creditor treatment under the approved resolution plan. Central Sales Tax dues likewise lack secured status because the Central Sales Tax Act creates no statutory first charge or security interest.

Section 33(1A) gives the Adjudicating Authority judicial, rather than mechanical or unfettered, discretion over a CoC-approved CIRP restoration request. Refusal requires cogent, relevant, record-based reasons directed to value maximisation and the resolution-first objective. Unsupported concerns about monetisation of carried-forward losses, without evidence, procedural opportunity, or tax-law analysis, cannot displace a unanimous CoC decision. The ability to pursue an arbitral receivable in liquidation is also insufficient without comparing value, timelines, costs, litigation risk, and market response. Departure from an earlier extension assessment requires explanation, and a liquidation order must be a reasoned speaking order engaging with the CoC's deliberations and comparative value considerations.

Approved resolution plans bind the corporate debtor, creditors and governmental authorities under section 31(1) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. Read with the Code's overriding effect under section 238, the clean slate doctrine extinguishes claims, including pre-resolution statutory and governmental dues, that are not included in the approved plan. Water-charge demands excluded from the plan therefore cannot be initiated, continued or recovered from the corporate debtor after approval.