Back to Town permission is relaxed for stranded export containers and shipping bills where the Export General Manifest has not been filed. Exporters or authorised Customs Brokers must apply to the concerned Assistant or Deputy Commissioner (Export). Customs officers must verify container seals against shipping bill and stuffing records; where seals are intact, physical examination is waived. BTT-related fees and penalties are also waived for the specified shipments until further orders or normalisation of shipping operations.

Membership of the SEEPZ SEZ Authority is amended by substituting the entries at serial numbers 5 and 6 in the earlier notification. The revised entries replace the previously named members with managing directors of different entities operating in the SEEPZ SEZ. This changes the persons occupying those membership positions and updates the Authority's composition through the revised membership list.

Restrictions on accepting loans or deposits outside prescribed banking modes do not apply where amounts are received through account-payee cheques, NEFT or RTGS rather than cash. An audit-report entry describing non-compliant loan receipts was corrected because it recorded the maximum outstanding loan balance, not loans received during the year. Confirmations and bank statements substantiating banking-channel receipts established no breach of Section 269SS; consequently, penalty under Section 271D was unsustainable.

Entries 5 and 6 of the notification concerning Falta SEZ are substituted. The listed enterprise representatives are replaced by the Managing Director of Patton International Limited and the whole-time Director of Cheviot Company Limited. The amendment thereby updates the designated representatives recorded for those entries under the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005.

The customs-duty exemption for up to 10 lakh MT of raw sugar classified under tariff heading 1701 remains available until 31 December 2026. The amendment substitutes the earlier expiry date of 31 October 2026, extending the period during which eligible raw-sugar imports are exempt from the whole of the applicable customs duty.

Four Standard Input-Output Norms under the Chemical and Allied Products group prescribe input quantities for export of doxycycline tablets and clobetasol propionate. The doxycycline norms cover USP 50 mg packs of 100 and USP 100 mg packs of 50 and 500, with Doxycycline USP (Monohydrate) inputs of 54.84 mg or 109.68 mg per export unit. The clobetasol propionate norm permits 1.08 kg of Betamethasone 17-Propionate per 1 kg of exported product. These norms facilitate expeditious processing of Advance Authorisations by regional authorities and uniform application of input-output requirements.

Compounding authority for FEMA contraventions involving overseas investment, borrowing, lending and guarantees is delegated to selected RBI regional offices. Overseas-investment applications must be filed with the regional office mapped to the foreign entity's UIN prefix; where no UIN exists, they remain with CEFA at the central office. Borrowing, lending and guarantee applications must be filed with the office having jurisdiction over the Indian entity's registered office or the applicant's domicile. Lending or guarantee breaches connected with an overseas direct investment follow the UIN-based route. Applications involving multiple delegated transaction categories may be filed with CEFA. The Master Directions will be updated accordingly.

Research Analysts and Research Entities need not maintain call recordings of interactions with institutional-investor clients. They must nevertheless maintain legally verifiable records of service-related interactions with all clients and prospective clients, including fee-paying and non-fee-paying clients, from first contact until completion of research services. Permitted records include signed physical records, call recordings, registered-email communications, SMS records and other legally verifiable evidence; call recordings are also unnecessary where email or another medium provides a digital footprint. KYC procedures and records remain required for fee-paying clients. Interaction records must be retained for five years, or longer until dispute resolution or as required by SEBI. The changes apply from November 8, 2026.

Risk-based physical boarding of vessels at designated minor ports will replace routine boarding, using advance assessment of compliance history, voyage and cargo data, itinerary, last port of call, declarations, and security indicators. Entry Inward and Vessel Sail-out Clearance must be granted promptly after required manifests, documents and checks are completed, and cannot be withheld solely because boarding has not occurred; cargo operations should not be unnecessarily delayed. Port stakeholders must provide advance vessel schedules and declarations. Masters and shipping agents remain responsible for accurate declarations, safeguarding onboard goods and reporting material changes. Customs officers retain statutory powers to board, examine or inspect vessels where intelligence, suspected non-compliance, or other risk indicators warrant it.

Section 45 of the PMLA imposes twin conditions for ordinary bail, but Article 21 requires a separate assessment where continued pre-trial custody risks becoming punitive because trial cannot conclude within a reasonable time. Constitutional bail depends on custody duration, trial progress and likely timetable, attribution of delay, evidence security, and risks of absconding or witness interference; no fixed custody period controls. Conditional release may protect trial integrity through passport surrender, attendance requirements, territorial limits and non-contact directions. Bail in the predicate offence, pending predicate proceedings and secured documentary material may support, but do not replace, the Section 45 assessment.

Salary expenditure is deductible only when actually incurred wholly and exclusively for business, supported by evidence of genuine employment, services, payment and commercial need. Third-party search statements may be used as evidence, but a retracted and uncorroborated statement should not alone sustain disallowance where the taxpayer lacks meaningful disclosure and an effective chance to rebut or cross-examine it. Retraction is not conclusive: a statement can retain weight if voluntary, corroborated, disclosed and assessed without demonstrable prejudice. A fact-specific 10% salary disallowance was sustained after the taxpayer sought closure, not as a general percentage rule. Contemporaneous employment and work-product records remain material.

Section 67 limits GST search-and-seizure powers to confiscable goods and documents, books or things useful or relevant to proceedings. Currency is excluded from goods and, under a contextual ejusdem generis reading, ordinarily cannot be retained as a thing merely because its source is questioned. Seizure and continued retention require recorded reasons, compliance with prescribed seizure procedures, and observance of statutory return periods. Recovery powers cannot be used at the search stage to secure a prospective demand. Where cash is taken without lawful authority, return of the principal does not cure the deprivation; accrued interest may be payable as restitution, distinct from delayed-refund interest.

Section 56(2)(x)(b) taxes the excess of stamp duty value over consideration only where the property receipt falls within the charging provision's temporal scope. It operates prospectively and cannot create liability where the agreement, execution, substantial payment, or operative acquisition preceded its commencement, despite later conveyance or registration. The agreement-date valuation provisos apply only after the charging provision applies and do not independently impose tax. For covered transactions, agreement-date stamp value may be used where consideration was fixed and paid, wholly or partly, through prescribed banking or electronic modes. Tax authorities must identify the correct statutory basis and cannot change it without adequate notice and opportunity to respond.

Risk-based selective boarding replaces routine physical boarding as a condition for Entry Inward or Vessel Sail-out Clearance. Boarding is determined through advance assessment of compliance history, voyage and cargo particulars, declarations, and security-related risk factors. Required manifests and prescribed checks permit prompt clearance without withholding cargo operations merely because boarding has not occurred. Masters and shipping agents remain responsible for accurate declarations, safeguarding onboard goods and reporting material changes. Customs officers retain authority to board, examine or inspect vessels when risk indicators or suspected non-compliance warrant intervention.

Employees' PF/ESI contributions paid after the due date under the relevant welfare law are non-deductible and may be adjusted during return processing as incorrect claims apparent from the return under section 143(1)(a)(ii). Where a statutory due date falls on a public holiday, section 10 of the General Clauses Act treats payment on the immediately following working day as timely, subject to verification that the relevant office was closed and payment occurred on the next open day. Payments within that computation-of-time rule may qualify for deduction; other delayed employee contributions remain disallowed.

Where a policy limits the insurer's liability to the Insured's Declared Value less the salvage or wreck value, deduction of that value from the claim settlement amount leaves ownership of the salvage with the insured. The deduction does not constitute consideration for a supply by the insurer, and no GST liability attaches to the insurer in respect of that salvage value. Where a claim is settled for the full Insured's Declared Value without deducting salvage value, ownership passes to the insurance company, and disposal or sale of the salvage constitutes an outward supply for GST.

For taxable life insurance policies, premium excluded from taxable value under rule 32(4) as an investment or savings component is not an exempt or non-taxable supply. The exclusion operates as a statutory valuation mechanism and does not change the taxable character of the life insurance service. Consequently, input tax credit reversal under rules 42 and 43, read with section 17(1) and 17(2), is not required in respect of that excluded premium portion.

Interim bail was granted for four weeks because the petitioner's daughter faced an extremely precarious medical condition requiring immediate attention. Medical records established the seriousness and urgency of her condition. Those circumstances supported temporary release, with relief confined to the specified four-week period to address her immediate medical needs.

Reimbursement by an Indian subsidiary to its overseas holding company for ESOP, ESPP or RSU securities transferred directly to employees is not subject to GST when made strictly on a cost-to-cost basis. Securities are neither goods nor services, and employee equity compensation under employment terms is outside supply. However, any fee, markup, commission or other amount charged over the securities' cost is consideration for facilitation or arrangement services, taxable as an import of services under the reverse charge mechanism.

Electronic filing is mandatory for appeals before GSTAT through efiling.gstat.gov.in, with digital upload of supporting documents. Filed appeals and applications are processed through the Case Information System and Document Management System, and orders are uploaded online for stakeholder access and case updates. Registration is available to taxpayers, officials, representatives, and other users. Payment guidance covers appeal fees and pre-deposits through the Bharatkosh portal. Cause lists, case status, notices, judgments, grievance support, user guidance, and hybrid hearings facilitate appellate proceedings.