Section 16(5) of the CGST Act operates retrospectively notwithstanding section 16(4), permitting input tax credit for specified financial years where the section 39 return was filed by 30 November 2021. Input tax credit cannot be reversed solely for breach of the ordinary limitation provision when this retrospective exception applies. Recovery founded only on that limitation ground is correspondingly unsustainable, while proceedings concerning other substantive input tax credit eligibility conditions remain unaffected. Consequential relief includes de-freezing bank accounts and refunding or adjusting amounts recovered solely on the limitation ground.

Effective service of GST notices requires more than portal upload where repeated portal communications receive no response. After cancellation of registration, officers must consider other prescribed modes to secure effective notice; the absence of physical or registered-email communication, coupled with denial of a personal hearing, breaches principles of natural justice. The assessment was set aside and remitted for fresh consideration on merits, subject to the stipulated deposit and filing of a reply, with clear notice of personal hearing required.

Interest on wrongly availed IGST credit requires determination by considering the aggregate balance in the electronic credit ledger across IGST, CGST and SGST heads, as required by the clarificatory circular. The interest liability itself remained undecided on merits. The impugned orders were set aside and the matters remitted for fresh consideration after a personal hearing. The fresh enquiry is confined to applying the circular when determining interest on wrongly availed IGST credit.

Ex parte adjudication of compensation cess without a reply to the show cause notice was set aside because entitlement to the cess required determination. The High Court also set aside the consequential rectification order and restored the petitioner's opportunity to respond to the show cause notice. The petitioner must file the reply within eight weeks and pay 25% of the balance tax within that period.

GST demands based on alleged ineligible recredit must identify the factual and legal charge in the show-cause notice; a bare assertion that input tax credit conditions were unmet does not support adjudication on undisclosed grounds. Tax paid under an incorrect head on outward supplies does not become input tax credit or create a fresh credit entitlement, and the prescribed refund mechanism cannot be bypassed by unilateral recredit. Correct-head payments require recognition and reconciliation with the original payment and recredit, without duplicate refund or credit. Interest requires wrongful availment and utilisation supported by ledger and timing findings; penalty requires a sustainable wrongful-credit finding.

Delayed bookkeeping entries supported by contemporaneous invoices and statutory returns do not, without more, establish unaccounted stock or an intention to clandestinely remove goods. Confiscation is confined to clear and deliberate evasion; a rough visual stock estimate without standard physical weighment is insufficient, particularly where separate assessment proceedings accept the explanation. These principles address alleged stock discrepancies and the consequential confiscation-related tax, penalty and redemption fine.

Statutory appellate power to condone delay in GST registration-cancellation appeals ends at the outer limit prescribed by Section 107(4); writ orders granting relief on particular facts do not enlarge that power, and equity or hardship cannot override the limit. Condonation beyond that period is therefore without jurisdiction. Where the Department has implemented an appellate restoration order by reinstating GST registration, its subsequent challenge to that order is barred by its own conduct: reversal would disrupt the restored registration and intervening transactions, with no effective relief available. The departmental appeal is consequently treated as infructuous and not maintainable.

Rectification of an error apparent on the face of the record may be made without an opportunity of hearing where the correction does not alter the advance ruling, increase tax liability, or reduce admissible input tax credit. An inadvertent typographical reference to B30 in a specified expression was deleted because the error was apparent from the record. The correction left all other findings, discussions, and the substantive ruling unchanged.

Current-repairs treatment applied to expenditure replacing dies and moulds, allowing the claim. Capital scientific-research expenditure and weighted research-and-development expenditure on work-in-progress qualified for the stated deductions. Notional profits from captive power generation qualified for the relevant deduction, and foreign-agent commission for overseas business promotion was deductible. UPS and voltage stabilisers used with computers qualified as computer peripherals for depreciation at 60%. Depreciation on a temporary parking shed was limited to 10%, with the Revenue's position restored.

Reassessment of short-term capital loss attributed to a mutual fund's alleged accounting manipulation is impermissible when the allegations are identical to those previously considered in a final, applicable determination. Where scrutiny assessment specifically examined the loss and the taxpayer's explanation, reopening requires fresh tangible material beyond the material already assessed; otherwise it constitutes a change of opinion. On both grounds, the reassessment order and consequential notice were quashed.

Urban Improvement Trust income does not qualify for local-authority exemption, and exemptions requiring Central Government notification apply only from the notification's effective date. Constitutional immunity applies only to income legally belonging to the State; income of a separate statutory corporation remains its own despite its public functions. Charitable registration benefits earlier years only where assessment proceedings were pending when registration was granted; an information notice alone is insufficient. Reassessment may rest on non-filing of returns and taxable surplus. Taxability of statutory collections and refundable advances requires examination of overriding title, liabilities, accounting treatment, and remittance or refund evidence; omission to specify an income head does not itself invalidate assessment.

Royalty liability on rejection or waste-dump sales from preceding financial years becomes deductible business expenditure when no earlier demand existed and the liability is first quantified and crystallised in the relevant year. This treatment applies notwithstanding mercantile accounting, because the enforceable liability arose only upon the later demand. Interest for delayed payment of such royalty is also deductible where it is compensatory rather than penal, follows the royalty demand, and is incurred wholly and exclusively to maintain continuity of mining operations. The royalty and compensatory-interest disallowances were deleted.

Penalty for failure to deduct tax at source is not automatic where the deductor establishes reasonable cause. The interaction of section 271C and section 273B excludes penalty if a bona fide belief concerning commission payments, coupled with accounts-department changes causing an inadvertent TDS oversight, explains the default. On those grounds, the penalty for non-deduction was deleted, while other grounds did not require determination.

The proviso to section 87A entitles an assessee to a tax rebate where total income chargeable under section 115BAC(1A) does not exceed Rs. 7,00,000. As the income satisfied that statutory threshold, restricting the claimed rebate was unsustainable. The rebate was allowed and the Revenue's appeal was dismissed.

Limited remand proceedings cannot reopen a stamp-duty valuation issue that earlier appellate directions did not keep open; the request for a valuation-officer reference therefore failed. Capital-gains exemption for transfer of agricultural land requires reliable proof that the land was used for agriculture by the assessee or a parent during the prescribed period; sale-deed description alone was insufficient, so the exemption was denied. Unsupported opening cash and banking entries without a direct nexus did not establish the source or genuineness of the investment. Likewise, creditor identity and bank receipt alone did not prove a refundable property advance where the agreement, cancellation and cash repayment were undocumented. The challenged additions were sustained.

CBDT Instruction No. 1916 prescribes guidelines for seizure of jewellery during search; it does not grant an unconditional exemption from assessment. The source, nature and ownership of jewellery must be established on the facts. Joint residence does not by itself create a common ownership pool or permit adjustment of other family members' permissible limits against jewellery separately identified in one person's bedroom, particularly where that benefit has been considered in other assessments. On these facts, the addition for unexplained gold jewellery was sustained.

Compliance with an operative interim judicial direction requiring a bank not to treat foreign-leg Leave Fare Concession reimbursements as employee income for tax deduction purposes precluded default treatment for the relevant payments. A later determination that such reimbursements were substantively taxable for another assessment year could not retrospectively transform compliance with that binding direction into a failure to deduct tax under section 201(1). Consequently, interest under section 201(1A), which depended on the alleged default, was unsustainable.

Search-derived material for an assessment year covered by Explanation 2 to section 148 requires use of the special reassessment mechanism under sections 147 and 148. A pending scrutiny proceeding initiated by notice under section 143(2) cannot be completed under section 143(3) where that mechanism applies, because the special regime overrides regular scrutiny. Prior approval under section 148B is mandatory; administrative or supervisory approval under a CBDT instruction does not satisfy that requirement. The assessment for AY 2022-23 was quashed on both grounds, without adjudication of additions on merits.

Restoration of the statutory customs appeal was warranted because the appellants had no opportunity to contest the exemption claim on merits before an appellate forum. Dismissal of the writ petition and restoration application on technical grounds relating to liberty to revive the appeal did not justify denial of a first appellate hearing. The right of appeal was treated as a valuable remedy requiring at least one forum to address grievances on merits. The impugned orders were set aside and the customs appeal restored to its original number for disposal on merits within the directed time.

Admission of a creditor's claim by a Resolution Professional is an administrative or clerical act of collating claims and does not amount to a conscious, unequivocal acknowledgment of a subsisting debt. An acknowledgment can extend limitation only when made before expiry of the prescribed limitation period. Where limitation had already expired before the insolvency application against a personal guarantor was filed, the Resolution Professional's admission of the claim could not revive or extend the period. The financial creditor's application under Section 95 was therefore barred by limitation, and the admission order was set aside with dismissal of the company petition.