Portal uploading is a valid mode of service under the GST Act, but repeated non-response to portal notices requires the officer to use other prescribed modes, preferably registered post, to secure effective service. Confirming show-cause proposals without ensuring effective service and affording a personal hearing denies the taxpayer a meaningful opportunity to respond. Ex parte GST assessment orders issued in those circumstances are invalid.

Section 74(1) of the CGST Act requires a show-cause notice to state foundational facts supporting fraud, wilful misstatement, or suppression to evade tax; a bare statutory recital is inadequate. Audit findings of unpaid or short-paid tax, delayed filings, unpaid late fees, reverse-charge liabilities, prior communications, and non-compliance with the final audit report may support the proper officer's prima facie satisfaction and, where demands, interest, penalties, and a response opportunity are specified, meet natural-justice requirements. An Article 226 challenge to an appealable order-in-original ordinarily will not proceed absent a jurisdictional defect or recognised exception; merits remain for the statutory appeal under Section 107.

Proper-officer assignment under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act determines whether the Joint Commissioner could issue and decide penalty proceedings. Sections 2(91) and 122 are identified as governing the assignment and exercise of proper-officer functions. Although issued after the impugned proceedings, a CBIC circular designates the Joint Commissioner for matters above the prescribed monetary threshold, which the proceedings met. Section 160 preserves proceedings that substantially conform to the Act despite mistakes, defects, or omissions. On that basis, the show-cause notice and Order-in-Original are not void for lack of jurisdiction.

Section 74 may be invoked for the extended five-year limitation only where the show-cause notice itself sets out specific allegations and supporting material establishing fraud, wilful misstatement, or suppression of facts to evade tax. Merely using those expressions without factual particulars does not justify recourse to the extended limitation period instead of the three-year period under Section 73. A notice lacking disclosure of the factual basis or material for those allegations does not validly invoke Section 74 and is unsustainable.

Electronic service of notice through the Common Portal raises whether portal availability constitutes actual or constructive communication sufficient to commence limitation. The issues include the Information Technology Act's application to electronic dispatch and receipt, the absence of hierarchy among alternative service modes under section 169(1)(a)-(e), and the restricted scope of deemed service under section 169(2) and (3). Revenue bears the burden of establishing prior communication.

Section 169 of the Tamil Nadu Goods and Services Tax Act requires service by personal delivery, registered or speed post, or the registered e-mail address as primary methods. Publication or making notice available on the common portal may be used only where those methods fail or are impracticable. Portal-only service without using, or establishing the impracticability of, the prescribed primary modes does not meet the statutory service requirement and breaches natural justice. An assessment and consequential rectification order founded solely on such portal service cannot be sustained.

Whether prior attachment orders made without a legally required proclamation can override the petitioner's claim remains in issue. The further question is whether the proclamation requirement extends to the Central Goods and Services Tax Department. State authorities were allowed time to file further material, including on alleged post-attachment steps and proclamation proceedings; the petition was adjourned for an additional affidavit and further hearing.

Registered security interests receive priority under Section 26E of the SARFAESI Act over government taxes, cesses and other dues. A State tax attachment predating that priority can displace a secured charge only if validly completed through the required public-proclamation process under the applicable land-revenue recovery framework; an attachment order alone is insufficient. Central Excise demands or attachment orders likewise do not supersede the secured charge unless the prescribed recovery process, including attachment and sale of excisable goods and, where necessary, recovery certification as land revenue, has been followed. Tax authorities may independently recover their dues in accordance with law.

Service-tax exemption framework for construction activities applied to receipts supported by documents identifying construction of single-storey houses, road and drainage works for public departments, and material supply. Notification No. 25/2012-ST was relevant to determining the character of those receipts. Documentary evidence establishing the nature of the underlying activities was sufficient, and treating that evidence as inadequate could not sustain a service-tax demand. The demand was therefore unsustainable and the impugned order was set aside.

Goodwill generated on a court-approved amalgamation, representing excess consideration over the amalgamating entities' net asset value, qualifies as a depreciable intangible asset under section 32 of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Depreciation is not denied merely because of the accounting treatment adopted or because separately demonstrable commercial benefits from the goodwill are not established. The recorded amalgamation goodwill is therefore eligible for depreciation.

Section 153A does not permit additions in unabated assessment years unless incriminating material is found during the assessee's own search. Documents and statements seized in an earlier third-party search cannot support such additions without invoking Section 153C. That route requires recorded satisfaction by the Assessing Officers of both the searched person and the other person. Where assessments had already attained finality, no incriminating material emerged from the assessee's search, and the required satisfaction was absent, the Section 153A assessments and additions were unsustainable; income required recomputation after deleting those additions.

Completed or unabated assessments may be disturbed under Section 153A only on incriminating material found during the assessee's own search. Additions based solely on material or statements from an independent third-party search require Section 153C, including jurisdictional satisfaction by the respective Assessing Officers. An existing Section 80-IA deduction, timely claimed with prescribed supporting material in the original return and accepted on processing, remains an existing rather than fresh claim in a Section 153A return. Its denial solely because the Section 153A return was late lacks a basis where the deduction was not previously disturbed or implicated by the search.

Completed assessments may not be subjected to additions under Section 153A unless incriminating material is found during the search. Registered property-transaction documents that do not show consideration exceeding the recorded value do not provide that basis; a deemed stamp-duty-value difference alone cannot support the addition. Where documents are found in another person's search, action against the assessee must follow Section 153C, with satisfaction recorded by the Assessing Officers of both the searched person and the other person. Use of Section 153A without that jurisdictional process cannot sustain an addition based on third-party search material.

Goodwill arising in a bona fide demerger for consideration was treated, for assessment year 2020-21, as an acquired intangible asset comprising commercial rights and therefore eligible for depreciation. The restriction on aggregate depreciation for pre-existing assets transferred in a reorganisation did not extend to goodwill first recognised by the resulting company. The Finance Act 2021 exclusion of goodwill depreciation applied prospectively from assessment year 2021-22. Employee provident-fund contributions remain deductible only if paid by the prescribed due date; where audit-report details conflict with challan and bank evidence, the actual payment date requires verification before deduction is allowed.

Goodwill generated when amalgamation consideration exceeds the net assets acquired qualifies for depreciation for Assessment Year 2018-19 because the Finance Act 2021 exclusion of goodwill from depreciable assets applies prospectively from Assessment Year 2021-22. Where interest-free funds exceed investments, investments are presumed funded from those funds and no interest disallowance arises under Section 14A; the investment-based computation is confined to investments generating exempt income. For book-profit purposes, expenditure relating to exempt income must be independently determined from annual accounts and cannot automatically mirror the normal-tax Section 14A disallowance; the required adjustment remains subject to factual examination.

Indexation for long-term capital gains is available from the date on which a capital asset is acquired through a final allotment-cum-agreement, rather than from earlier provisional allotments or initial payments. Provisional allotment communications, including amendments to an originally allotted flat, do not by themselves establish acquisition of the capital asset. Where the final allotment-cum-agreement was executed on 19 July 2010 and substantial payments were made under it, that agreement determines the starting point for indexation. The earlier provisional-allotment and payment period does not qualify.

Finality of an appellate order deleting interest levied under section 234D prevents the same levy from independently surviving in a duplicate appeal. Under the doctrine of merger, the assessment action imposing that interest merges into and is displaced by the final appellate determination. Dismissing the duplicate appeal as infructuous without disproving the prior appellate decision is inconsistent with res judicata, finality of litigation, and reasoned decision-making; the dismissal was consequently invalid.

Outstanding receivables from associated enterprises may fall within capital financing and constitute an international transaction, but delayed realisation does not automatically justify a notional-interest transfer-pricing adjustment. The inquiry must examine the pattern of delay, working-capital and profitability effects, benefit to the associated enterprise, the taxpayer's debt-free status and use of borrowings, comparable credit periods for unrelated parties, and netting of associated-enterprise payables against receivables. Each assessment year requires independent factual evaluation. The notional-interest adjustment was remitted for fresh examination on these transfer-pricing factors.

Penalty for concealment under section 271(1)(c) is not leviable where the related income addition rests solely on an estimated percentage of aggregate cash deposits. Applying a five per cent rate to deposits, beyond income already admitted, is inherently subjective and does not by itself establish concealment in relation to the estimated amount. The penalty imposed on that purely estimated addition was therefore deleted.

Cash deposits comprising road tax, fitness-certificate charges, and related statutory dues collected from transport operators for RTO remittance may not constitute unexplained money under Section 69A where customer details, cash records, and subsequent tax remittances substantiate their source. A claimed contravention of restrictions on specified bank notes does not, without proof of unaccounted cash, negate a genuine explanation. The absence of evidence that notes were received after demonetisation and a non-abnormal deposit pattern further support verification of the explained source.