Export Inspection Certificate requirement: rice exports to EU and specified European countries now need certification; others exempt for six months.
Exports of rice (Basmati and Non Basmati) to EU Member States and specified European countries require a Certificate of Inspection issued by the competent export inspection authority; exports to other European countries are exempt from the Certificate of Inspection requirement for a temporary period of six months, amending the prior notification accordingly.

Aadhaar authentication requirement for GST registration: biometric and document verification at facilitation centres required for completeness.
Where an applicant (other than specified exempt persons) opts for Aadhaar authentication, the application's date of submission is the date of Aadhaar authentication or fifteen days from filing Part B of FORM GST REG-01, whichever is earlier; applicants identified by portal analysis must complete biometric Aadhaar authentication, photograph capture and original document verification at a Commissioner notified Facilitation Centre, and the application is complete only after those steps are finished.

Investment limit exception allows equity ETFs and index funds exemption subject to Board-specified conditions under mutual fund amendments.
The amendment inserts an exception in Seventh Schedule, clause 9(c), to the 25 per cent of the net assets limitation permitting equity oriented exchange traded funds and index funds to exceed that concentration cap, provided such investments comply with conditions as may be specified by the Board. The Regulations take effect on publication in the Official Gazette.

Special Additional Excise Duty on petroleum crude increased; amended tariff entry substituted and takes effect in July.
Special Additional Excise Duty on production of petroleum crude is increased by substituting the tariff entry in the Table of notification No. 18/2022 Central Excise with a revised duty per tonne; the amendment is effected under powers conferred by the Central Excise Act and the Finance Act and is notified as No. 17/2024 Central Excise, coming into force on 2 July 2024.

Sea cargo manifest compliance extends the prescribed period and reduces the monetary amount specified in Form XI.
Sea Cargo Manifest and Transhipment compliance is amended by extending the period under regulation 15(2) to 31 August 2024. Form XI is revised to reduce the prescribed monetary amount from ten lakh rupees to five lakh rupees, including corresponding numerical and textual references.

Tariff value fixation for selected edible oils, metals and areca nut updated, altering customs valuation consequences.
Amendment to the principal customs notification substitutes revised Tables specifying tariff values in US dollars for listed imports - edible oils (including crude palm oil, RBD palm oil, palmolein, crude soybean oil), brass scrap (all grades), areca nuts, and specified forms of gold and silver - effected under section 14(2) of the Customs Act, 1962 and coming into force on 29th June, 2024.

Mule accounts defined; transactions through such accounts and diversion of assets treated as manipulative conduct under securities regulations.
The Regulations define mule account as trading, dematerialised or bank accounts in another person's name but effectively controlled by someone else, including where the controlling person provides consideration; they extend the prohibition to acts of diversion, misutilisation or siphoning of a listed company's assets or any scheme to manipulate its books or financial statements that would affect securities prices, and expressly deem transactions through mule accounts for manipulative, fraudulent or unfair trade practices to be included in sub-regulation (1).

Prevention and detection of market abuse: stock brokers must implement surveillance, KYC, reporting, escalation and whistleblower frameworks.
A new Chapter IVA mandates that stock brokers establish and maintain systems for surveillance of trading activities, robust know your client procedures, documented internal controls with defined roles, customized alert thresholds, and processes to detect mule accounts. Senior management and Designated Directors must implement and periodically review these systems. Detected suspicious activity must be reported to stock exchanges within prescribed timelines and summarized in half yearly reports; governance bodies must review compliance quarterly. A documented whistle blower policy with confidentiality and protection procedures is required.

Information sharing via Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit enables common portal consent-based data exchange under GST framework.
Notification designates Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit as the system with which the common GST portal may share information based on taxpayer consent under Section 158A, describing the platform as an enterprise grade open architecture IT platform that enables convergence of financial service providers and data service providers via a standard, protocol driven open API framework for access to diverse data sources.

Extension of limitation under Section 73 for tax recovery; deadlines extended for specified financial years.
The Government extends the time limit for issuance of orders for recovery of tax not paid or short paid and of input tax credit wrongly availed or utilised, modifying earlier notifications; the revised deadlines for issuance of such recovery orders are the end of April 2024 for one financial year and the end of August 2024 for the other, under the statutory power to extend limitation periods.

Customs exemption extension for defence equipment imports extended by substituting the expiry year, prolonging exemption validity.
The Central Government, invoking powers under the Customs Act and the Customs Tariff Act in public interest, amends Notification No. 19/2019 Customs by substituting the expiry year in paragraph 2 from 2024 to 2029, thereby extending the validity of the miscellaneous exemption for imports of the specified defence equipment for five additional years.

Provisional anti-dumping duty imposed on telescopic channel drawer sliders from China PR; effective six months, payable in Indian currency.
A provisional anti-dumping duty is imposed on Telescopic Channel Drawer Slider from China PR (including where China PR is origin or export country) following preliminary findings of dumping and material injury to domestic industry. The duty is set per metric ton in US dollars but payable in Indian currency, with the rate of exchange determined by the Government of India on the bill of entry date. The provisional measure is effective for six months from publication unless earlier revoked, amended or superseded, and customs classification is indicative with final determination guided by the PUC description.

Anti-dumping duty on imported easy-open tinplate ends to address dumped imports and protect the domestic industry.
Imposition of anti-dumping duty on easy open ends of tin plate, including electrolytic tin plate (ETP), of specified diameters originating in or exported from China PR and imported into India, following designated authority findings of dumping and material injury; product scope, exclusions, tariff classification, unit-based duty payable in Indian currency for a prescribed period, and the prescribed rule for determination of rate of exchange tied to bill of entry presentation are specified.

Alloy steel chisels and hydraulic rock breakers now face producer-specific anti-dumping duties with defined scope and assembly coverage.
Anti-dumping duties apply to alloy steel chisels and hydraulic rock breakers under headings 84314930 and 84314990 originating in or exported from China PR and Korea RP, with producer- and origin-specific percentage rates of duty on CIF value in USD; specified assemblies/sub-assemblies of hydraulic rock breakers listed in Table D1 are covered, duties apply to chisels imported with breakers under chisel rates only, and the measures are effective for five years with exchange rate and CIF valuation rules as per the Customs Act.

Antidumping duty on Sodium Cyanide imposed to counter dumped imports and address material injury to domestic industry.
Imposition of an anti-dumping duty on Sodium Cyanide under tariff heading 2837 follows designated authority findings that exports from China PR, the European Union, Japan and Korea RP have been dumped and caused material injury to the domestic industry; specific duty rates are prescribed by country of origin, export and producer, and duties will be levied in Indian currency for five years from publication, with the applicable exchange rate determined by separate Government notifications and the bill of entry presentation date.

FPI contribution limits restrict individual and NRI/OCI stakes, mandate remittance routing and control safeguards.
Regulation 4(c) now requires that a single NRI/OCI/resident Indian individual contribute less than twenty-five percent of an applicant's corpus, with aggregate contributions of NRIs, OCIs and resident Indian individuals capped below fifty percent; resident Indian individual contributions must be made through the RBI's Liberalised Remittance Scheme into global funds with Indian exposure under fifty percent; such persons must not control the applicant; the Board may specify further conditions. Provisos exempt IFSC-regulated applicants subject to Board conditions and preserve existing Board exemptions as of notification.

Notified commodities list expands regulated commodity derivatives, specifying goods and categories for SCRA compliance in markets.
Central Government, in consultation with the Securities and Exchange Board of India, notifies a Schedule of goods as notified commodities for clause (bc) of section 2 of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, superseding prior notifications; categories include cereals and pulses, oilseeds and oils, spices, fruits and vegetables, metals and precious metals, gems, forestry products, fibres, energy, chemicals, construction materials, sweeteners, plantation crops, dairy and poultry, dry fruits, and specified activities and events such as freight and weather.

Retrospective amendment adds an effective date to a State Tax notification, deemed operative from July 31, 2023.
The amendment inserts the words "with effect from 1st day of January 2024" into Notification No. 30/2023 State Tax immediately after the phrase "hereby notifies the following special procedure to be followed" and declares that this insertion shall be deemed to have been effective from 31st July 2023, effectuating both a specified commencement date and a retrospective deeming of that commencement.

Trading plan parameters expanded: mandatory trade details and optional price limits, with swift compliance officer approval and Audit Committee review.
Trading plans must specify for each trade either the value or number of securities, the nature of the trade, and either a specific date or a time period not exceeding five consecutive trading days; an optional price limit may be set within a prescribed range relative to the prior closing price, may be adjusted for corporate actions with compliance officer approval and disclosed to exchanges, and trades must be executed only within any set price limit. Non-implementation must be reported to the compliance officer, reviewed by the Audit Committee, and notified to exchanges; the compliance officer must approve or reject plans within two trading days and notify approved plans to exchanges on the day of approval.

Electronic filing requirement for specified income-tax forms mandated with prescribed verification under applicable rule provisions.
Specified Forms listed in Appendix-II to the Income-tax Rules, 1962 shall be furnished electronically and shall be verified in the manner prescribed under sub-rule (1) of Rule 131, encompassing applications for notification of affordable housing projects and semiconductor wafer fabrication units as specified businesses, applications for pre-filing meetings, opting for Safe Harbour for specified domestic transactions, and applications for approvals related to public-issue investment exemptions.