Section 144B requires service of a show-cause notice before a faceless assessment or reassessment makes a variation prejudicial to the assessee, so that an effective response can be given. A disallowance of cost of acquisition or construction made without notice proposing that variation breaches the mandatory faceless-assessment procedure and natural justice. Failure to disclose the grounds for proposed additions similarly denies a fair opportunity to respond. The resulting assessment is non-est, rendering other challenges academic and allowing the appeal.

Reasonable cause under section 273B precludes penalty for delayed furnishing of a tax audit report where the taxpayer establishes a justified explanation. Illness, specifically viral fever, was accepted as a reasonable cause for delay despite the absence of supporting medical evidence, because the Revenue produced no material rebutting the explanation. Consequently, penalty under section 271B was not leviable, the order confirming it was set aside, and the taxpayer's appeal succeeded.

Penalty notices for under-reporting and search-related penalties must specify the statutory circumstance or clause invoked, since a generic allegation does not disclose the precise charge or provide a reasonable opportunity to respond. Identifying the clause only in the final penalty order does not cure a defective initiation. Cash expenditure recorded in contemporaneous informal books during an unclosed financial year, later entered in regular books and reflected in an accepted return, does not constitute undisclosed income merely because it was absent from regular books on the search date or admitted in a search statement. On these grounds, the penalties for both assessment years were deleted.

Consideration for supplying standard software to Indian customers, directly or through an Indian subsidiary, is characterised under the India-USA DTAA as business income rather than royalty where the relevant facts, transaction terms, and legal position remain unchanged. In the absence of a permanent establishment in India, Article 7 prevents taxation of that business income in India. The corresponding addition that treated the software receipts as royalty is deleted.

Transfer-pricing treatment limited corporate-guarantee commission to 0.5% and associated-enterprise loan interest to 9% by applying earlier-year benchmarks. Withholding-tax disallowances were removed for overseas legal fees and export commission paid to non-resident agents for services outside India, whereas non-withholding on payments to an offshore branch of an Indian bank was sustained for professional or technical services. Annual GDR listing and maintenance fees, foreign travel expenditure, and the section 80-IA captive-power deduction were allowed. Carbon-credit sale proceeds were treated as capital receipts. Mining-development expenditure capitalised in the accounts was not deductible as revenue expenditure, but qualified for applicable depreciation.

Additional legal grounds raising pure questions of law may be admitted for the first time on appeal where all material facts are on record and no further inquiry is required. Rectification of a consequential assessment order must be confined to the mistake identified in the rectification notice and must arise from that order itself. Interest under section 234B, having merged with the appellate order, could not be rectified in the consequential order; any section 234C omission lay in the original assessment. Further, a debatable advance-tax interest levy under the statutory proviso is not a mistake apparent from record. The rectification and its appellate confirmation were invalid.

Realised foreign exchange loss arising on settlement of a foreign-currency liability may be capitalised into the actual cost of the related capital asset under section 43A. Where the taxpayer records assets at the prevailing exchange rate, capitalises the exchange difference only upon final settlement, and does not claim that loss separately as revenue expenditure, the enhanced asset cost forms the basis for depreciation. Depreciation on the capitalised realised loss is therefore allowable, and a disallowance of such depreciation is not sustainable.

Appellate jurisdiction over non-transfer-pricing assessment issues covers interest-expenditure and exempt-income disallowances where no transfer-pricing adjustment or arm's-length-price determination is examined. Interest deductions require identification of interest linked to earlier and current advances and taxable interest income; where no direct nexus is established, proportional examination applies. Claims disallowed for tax-deduction-at-source non-compliance require verification of payment under the statutory proviso before determination. Exempt-income disallowance cannot exceed exempt income earned, while the Finance Act 2022 amendment operates prospectively. The additional disallowance beyond the voluntary disallowance was deleted, and the Revenue's appeal was dismissed.

Prolonged pre-trial incarceration in a money-laundering prosecution may violate the right to speedy trial under Article 21 where charges remain unframed and the predicate offence has no charge-sheet. The High Court considered early commencement and completion of both trials unlikely, particularly because the money-laundering trial could not be finally decided before the scheduled-offence trial concluded. Continued detention for an indeterminate period would therefore become punitive rather than preventive. Bail was granted subject to conditions requiring investigative cooperation, restricting travel, and safeguarding prosecution witnesses.

Under the PMLA, a stay of predicate-offence proceedings does not extinguish the underlying offence; unlike quashing, it only temporarily suspends proceedings. An ECIR-based inquiry may therefore continue where the predicate FIR pre-dated the ECIR and remains unquashed. Summons should ordinarily state their purpose, identify information or documents bearing a nexus to the ECIR or PMLA inquiry, and specify consequences of non-compliance; vague or omnibus demands are generally unsustainable. However, lack of full particulars does not automatically invalidate a summons in a complex inquiry if grounds can be justified without compromising the inquiry. Recipients may furnish available material and seek reasonable time for further compliance.

Bank-account freezing under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act requires strict compliance with search-and-seizure safeguards, including the authorised officer's written reasons to believe based on information in possession. The High Court found that the freezing order appeared not to record those reasons and stated that later forwarding of records or proceedings before the Adjudicating Authority could not cure that foundational defect. Because the challenge alleged infringement of fundamental rights and procedural illegality, the alternative statutory remedy did not preclude writ jurisdiction. The writ petition was maintainable, and notice was issued for further consideration.

Contractual allocation of DVAT liability and reimbursement under a works contract may be resolved through arbitration. The relevant tax inquiry is whether imported or inter-State procured goods have an integral contractual nexus with their supply: project-specific procurement to employer specifications, approved suppliers, prescribed inspection and employer consignee status may preserve that nexus despite intermediary procurement and incorporation into works. Such transactions attract exemption for sales in the course of import or inter-State trade, making DVAT and contractual reimbursement inapplicable. Review under Section 34 is confined: courts do not re-appreciate evidence or substitute a plausible arbitral view absent patent illegality going to the root of the matter.

Retrospective application of evidentiary requirements for input tax credit is improper where reassessment proceedings occurred before those requirements were prescribed. Denial of credit without affording the taxpayer an opportunity to produce material establishing the genuineness of purchase transactions violates principles of natural justice. The appellate orders denying input tax credit were set aside, and the claim was remitted for fresh consideration with sufficient opportunity to submit additional evidence. The merits of the claim remained open.

Order XVI Rule 1 CPC does not absolutely bar summoning a witness omitted from a timely witness list; the requesting party must explain the omission. Failure to obtain relevant GST registration and invoice information through the RTI process justified summoning the Assistant Commissioner of CGST, because that evidence was relevant to the defence. The refusal of that summons was set aside. Summons to the engineering college principal remained refused because the proposed evidence was unrelated to the controversy.

Corporate veil-piercing in execution is an exceptional response where promoters allegedly use layered entities and securities transactions to deplete shareholding represented as security through judicial assurances. Separate personality remains the rule, and control or ownership alone does not suffice; there must be a nexus between control, misuse of the corporate form, and frustration of enforcement. A forensic audit reconstructs share movements, pledges, sales, financing, approvals, disclosures, and fund flows, distinguishing legitimate enforcement of pre-existing security from coordinated asset dissipation.

Consolidated show cause notices may combine financial years governed by Sections 73 and 74 where liabilities are segregated period-wise, each component independently meets limitation and notice requirements, the additional ingredients for fraud-based proceedings are satisfied, and no actual prejudice arises. School affiliation and affiliation-form processing charges are independent taxable supplies where they concern institutional eligibility and compliance, rather than directly and immediately relating to student admission or the conduct of examinations. A broad connection with education does not satisfy the educational-services exemption.

Input tax credit from allegedly non-existent suppliers depends on proof of genuine supply and actual receipt of goods or services, not merely invoices, accounting entries, or banking-channel payments. Section 155 places the burden of establishing ITC eligibility on the claimant. Section 74 requires more than ineligible credit: the wrongful availment must be linked to fraud, wilful misstatement, or suppression to evade tax. Retrospective supplier-registration cancellation is relevant evidence but is not conclusive. A fraud-based notice must disclose facts showing fictitious suppliers, absence of supply, and a basis for inferring the recipient's knowledge or participation.

Section 45 of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act remains the stringent ordinary bail threshold, requiring prosecutorial opportunity and, on opposition, reasonable grounds to believe that the accused is not guilty and unlikely to offend while on bail. Article 21 nevertheless requires a separate, fact-sensitive inquiry where prolonged pre-trial detention and an unrealistic trial timetable make custody disproportionate. Relevant factors include custody length, trial progress, remaining witnesses, secured documentary evidence, source of delay, predicate-case status, and risks of absconding or witness interference. Conditions such as passport surrender, attendance, non-contact directions, and residence disclosure may safeguard the trial.

Section 56(2)(viib) taxes only share consideration exceeding fair market value, while Rule 11UA allows an issuer of unquoted equity shares to elect a prescribed NAV or DCF method. The election does not make a DCF report conclusive: projections, discount rate, terminal value, data and calculations must be supportable on the valuation date. Assessment scrutiny may identify demonstrably wrong facts, material computational errors or objectively unsupported assumptions, and may require reconsideration or an independent valuation within the selected DCF method. It cannot rest solely on hindsight, unaudited management forecasts or a lower NAV result. The higher-value statutory limb may support asset-based valuation. The provision is stated not to apply on or after 1 April 2025.

Exported goods are zero-rated, but incorrect classification of IGST in the non-zero-rated field of FORM GSTR-3B can block the Rule 96 automated Customs refund. Where IGST is paid again in the correct zero-rated field and the automated refund relates only to that later payment, the original payment may be claimed as separately identifiable excess tax through FORM GST RFD-01 with a transaction-level reconciliation. The claim must establish double payment, the payment actually refunded, and absence of prior adjustment or duplicate benefit. Article 265 prohibits retention of tax not legally due, while Section 39(9) does not permit retrospective revision of the original return; the remedy is an excess-payment refund, not return amendment.