Karnataka Bank Limited's computer resources relating to its Core Banking Solution, Real Time Gross Settlement and Unified Payments Interface Switch, including associated dependencies, are declared protected systems as Critical Information Infrastructure. Access is authorised for designated employees, authorised managed-service-provider personnel and third-party vendors on a need-based basis, and consultants, regulators, government officials, auditors and stakeholders authorised in writing on a case-to-case basis. The designation takes effect upon publication in the Official Gazette.

Vault Managers must implement procedures for deposit, storage and withdrawal; maintain security policies addressing operational and cyber threats; and periodically reconcile physical bullion against their own records and records maintained by depositories, clearing corporations, asset management companies or custodians. Bullion underlying bullion related instruments must remain within the vaulting system and be segregated instrument-wise and entity-wise. Every Vault Manager must appoint a compliance officer, indemnify beneficial owners for losses caused during vaulting services, and cannot create bullion related instruments or deposit stored bullion in its own name.

Appointments to the three Grievance Appellate Committees are revised under rule 3A of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Committee 1 and Committee 2 receive substituted whole-time members, while Committee 3 is reconstituted with an ex officio Chairperson and two whole-time members. Each whole-time member holds office for three years from assuming office or until further orders, whichever occurs earlier.

Central Government designates the Centre of Excellence in Digital Forensics (CoEDF) as an Examiner of Electronic Evidence within India under section 79A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The authorised scope covers Computer (Media) Forensics and Mobile Devices Forensics. Gazette Notification No. 3390, dated 8 August 2023, is rescinded.

Proposed GST reforms would remove the statutory arrest mechanism, raise the prosecution threshold, reduce residual penalties and introduce a minimum aggregate tax threshold for specified demand notices. They would also expand input tax credit and refund eligibility, automate key refund stages, simplify registration and e-commerce registration, and introduce return-mismatch correction and objections to credit blocking. Transit interception would be intelligence-led and restricted, while export, reverse-charge e-invoicing, zero-rating, intellectual-property treatment and selected goods and services would receive targeted changes. Legal effect remains subject to enactment, prescribed conditions and implementation measures.

GST return mismatches are identified as a recurrent basis for tax demands notwithstanding the need to establish actual short payment. An alternate mechanism for amendment of liability and input tax credit (ITC) in returns is proposed to take effect from the April 2027 return period. The mechanism is intended to enable correction and reconciliation of return data, reduce mismatch-based demand notices and system-generated intimations, and strengthen ITC integrity throughout the supply chain.

Sections 122(1A) and 132(1) are analysed as requiring cumulative proof that a person orchestrated a covered fraudulent transaction and personally retained its illicit economic benefit. Liability is not based solely on office, professional involvement, signing or filing records, or receipt of an ordinary commercial payment. Proof should identify both the act of orchestration and a financial trail establishing the benefit retained. The same threshold is applied to civil penalties, prosecution, and arrest-related action, with coercive measures not resting on suspicion or incomplete evidence.

Income deemed to be received includes prescribed recognised provident-fund accretions, transferred provident-fund balances, and specified employer or Central Government pension contributions. Specified dividends are treated as income in the tax year when declared, distributed, or paid, while interim dividends are income when unconditionally made available to the entitled member. Differences in drafting may require fresh interpretation, and deeming rules may create timing mismatches where income is accounted for or realised in a later year.

Proposals contemplate reducing the maximum general penalty under section 125 and introducing a common minimum monetary threshold for demand notices under sections 73, 74 and 74A, including pending unadjudicated cases when implemented. Comprehensive officer guidelines would address notice and order quality, timeliness, fraud-based grounds, and natural-justice safeguards. Recommended changes to blocked input tax credit would cover specified business inputs and losses. An optional ARQP scheme is approved in principle for eligible small B2C taxpayers.

GST confiscation challenges ordinarily proceed through the statutory appeal. Direct writ intervention requires an established jurisdictional defect, genuine denial of natural justice, infringement of fundamental rights, or a challenge to the governing law. Allegations concerning document supply, hearing, evidentiary evaluation, findings or reasons must be tied to a specific defect; where they require examination of the record, they generally remain matters for appellate review. Compliance with filing conditions, including limitation and pre-deposit requirements, remains necessary.

The resolution professional supervises repayment-plan implementation and may seek directions from the Adjudicating Authority. Completion requires a notice and implementation report to persons bound by the plan and the Adjudicating Authority. If the plan ends prematurely, the resolution professional must report payments, reasons, and unsatisfied claims; a debtor or unsatisfied creditor may seek a bankruptcy order. PGIRP-5 records implementation, discharge, and premature-closure information, while quarterly PGIRP-6 records process status, stays, withdrawals, delays, and completed activities.

Excise-duty liability cannot rest solely on a discrepancy in an ER-6 return where the corresponding ER-1 return is available but not examined and no independent evidence establishes unaccounted or clandestine clearance. The extended limitation period is unavailable where the relevant ER-6 return and the assessee's explanation were already within departmental knowledge, because suppression is not established. A show-cause notice issued after the normal period is therefore time-barred, leaving the related duty demand and penalty without an adequate evidentiary or limitation basis.

Extended limitation for central excise and erroneous-refund recovery requires suppression of facts with intent to evade duty. Below-cost cement sales under an area-based exemption, without evidence of additional consideration flowing back, do not by themselves establish suppressed value or evasion, particularly where refund claims underwent departmental verification. For freight transactions before 1 July 2012, service tax liability under the applicable rule is confined to freight actually paid; the excess collected from customers is transportation profit rather than taxable freight. Consequently, the excise, service-tax and refund-recovery demands, with related interest and penalties, were unsustainable, while the independent fixed penalty under Section 77 remained operative.

CENVAT credit on capital goods is disallowed only where they are exclusively used to manufacture exempt final products. Where a manufacturer produces both dutiable and exempt biscuits and no exclusive exempt use is established, credit on capital goods, inputs and input services remains available; the reversal demand is unsustainable. Recording credit availment and utilisation in RG-23C registers and ER-1 returns negates suppression of facts or wilful misstatement. The extended limitation period therefore cannot apply, leaving the associated interest and penalty unsustainable.

Extended-period service-tax recovery from a subcontractor requires established suppression, misstatement, fraud, collusion, or comparable conduct intended to evade tax. A bona fide belief that no separate liability arose after the main contractor paid service tax on the full contract consideration, combined with conflicting views on subcontractor taxability, does not establish those conditions. Limitation therefore prevents an extended-period demand where the required default and intent are not proved.

Statutory payments to State Governments are outside service tax only when they are taxes; payments constituting consideration or fees for services attract service tax under the reverse charge mechanism. Rural infrastructure and road development levy and forest transit fee were characterised as fees for services rather than taxes and were therefore liable to reverse-charge service tax. As payment of the tax entitled the assessee to corresponding Cenvat credit, no mala fides arose and the demand was limited to the normal limitation period. Cenvat credit becoming available after payment may be refunded in cash under the CGST transitional provisions.

Transportation of goods by road does not create further service-tax liability for the provider where the recipient has discharged the tax under the reverse charge mechanism. The absence of a consignment note, together with tax payment by the recipient, supports the conclusion that no additional tax is payable by the transport service provider. Consequently, a service-tax demand and associated penalty against the provider are unsustainable in these circumstances.

Original works relating to a single residential unit, other than as part of a residential complex, qualify for service-tax exemption. Where the recorded construction agreement and acknowledged contract value establish that the full receipt relates to construction of the residential house, the service recipient's inability to explain the payment mode does not by itself prove consideration for separate taxable works. The entire construction consideration is therefore exempt, with no service tax or penalty payable.

Leasing an excavator falls outside the taxable category of supply of tangible goods where the lease transfers the lessee's exclusive right to use the equipment. Section 66E(f) of the Finance Act, 1994 applies only where goods are hired or leased without such transfer. Exclusive control, operation, maintenance and related expenses borne by the lessee support treatment as a deemed sale. VAT paid on the consideration is consistent with the transaction being a transfer of the right to use, leaving no service tax payable on the lease charges.

Contractual recoveries from transporters for short or damaged cement deliveries are liquidated damages for failure to perform, not consideration for agreeing to tolerate a breach under Section 66E(e). Where service tax has already been paid on freight, such compensation cannot be taxed again as a declared service; the related service-tax demand and interest were annulled. As the underlying non-payment allegation did not survive, the Section 78 penalty was also set aside. Penalties under Sections 77(1)(a) and 77(2) for contravention of Section 70 remained operative as independent compliance penalties.