The first proviso to Section 129A(1) excludes Tribunal appellate jurisdiction over orders relating to goods imported or exported as baggage. Where gold chains were brought by a passenger from Kuwait in checked-in baggage and proceedings concerned alleged non-declaration, improper importation, seizure, confiscation and penalty, those merits issues do not displace the statutory exclusion. The prescribed remedy is revision before the competent Revisional Authority under Section 129DD, rather than an appeal to the Tribunal.

Refund claims for customs interest must be filed within one year of payment under Section 27 of the Customs Act, unless the payment was made under protest. Payment made to generate electronic challans and complete clearance does not by itself establish a written protest. Claims before customs authorities remain subject to the statutory refund mechanism and limitation even where the amount is alleged to have been collected without authority of law. Technical difficulties, bona fides, hardship, late procedural awareness, and administrative waiver orders do not permit statutory authorities or the Tribunal to extend limitation without an express statutory exclusion. Accordingly, the stated refund claim was time-barred.

Writ jurisdiction requires credible material indicating cognisable wrongdoing or abuse of official power before an independent investigation into alleged Customs corruption may be sought; administrative delay and unsubstantiated suspicion are insufficient. Claims for compensation arising from delayed import clearance may involve disputed questions on loss, causation and responsibility, requiring adjudication before a competent civil court or other appropriate forum rather than under Article 226. Import, fiscal and administrative policy formulation remains within the legislative and executive domain, and writ jurisdiction cannot compel creation of a specified regulatory framework or departmental-delay penalty mechanism without a statutory or constitutional obligation.

A statutory bar on CESTAT appeals relating to payment of drawback does not extend to interest claimed under Section 75A for delayed disbursement of sanctioned drawback. The exclusion must be strictly construed, and delayed-payment interest is a separate statutory liability from entitlement to, or quantification of, drawback. Interest accrues if drawback is not paid within one month of the deemed claim date. Under the Drawback Rules, the shipping bill is deemed filed on the Let Export Order date; pending proceedings do not defer accrual where entitlement is ultimately established. The exporter is therefore entitled to interest from one month after the Let Export Order until actual payment.

Where an Interim Board for Settlement lacks the statutory quorum and cannot exercise jurisdiction, that non-functional period must be excluded when computing the time limit for disposal of settlement applications under the Customs Act. The settlement timeline presupposes a duly constituted forum capable of deciding the application; inability to act because of absent quorum differs from delay before an available competent forum. Treating the two alike would make settlement rights depend on administrative contingencies beyond an applicant's control. Where the applicant completed the required steps and the matter was heard and reserved before the Board became non-functional, the proceedings do not abate and related abatement communications are unsustainable.

Separate show-cause notices retained independent legal character despite arising from a common investigation, being assigned to the same adjudicating authority, and being heard together. A stay expressly limited to proceedings under one notice could not, by implication, prevent adjudication under the other notice. Challenges alleging denial of hearing, non-supply of relied-upon material, adjournments, evidentiary errors, and defects in adjudication were required to be pursued through the effective statutory appellate remedy, with no exceptional basis for writ intervention. Limitation, Call Book, extension, and communication issues concerning the still-pending notice were left to the adjudicating authority, which must provide an effective hearing before finalising proceedings.

Offshore conversion and construction services performed wholly in the UAE are treated as business income under the India-UAE DTAA, which contains no separate fees-for-technical-services article. In the absence of an Indian permanent establishment, the receipts are not taxable in India. A final assessment completed before the Dispute Resolution Panel issued directions is legally invalid where it was finalised on the assumption that no objections had been filed. The premature assessment was therefore quashed.

Deduction for provision for bad and doubtful debts under Section 36(1)(viia) requires an actual provision in the books of account. The statutory percentages set only the maximum permissible ceiling and do not create an independent entitlement to deduction. Where the book provision is below that ceiling, the deduction is restricted to the amount actually provided, as supported by binding High Court authorities and a co-ordinate ruling in the assessee's own case. The stated conclusion is that deduction cannot exceed the provision recorded in the accounts.

Alleged client code modification in commodity pair trades cannot support an unexplained cash credit addition where the disputed gross purchase amount is not credited in the assessee's books. As each purchase had a corresponding sale or vice versa, only the resulting profit or loss could be relevant. The broker stated that modifications were operational and made without the assessee's instruction or knowledge, while Revenue did not identify the relevant transactions, prove the assessee's involvement, or establish any positive gain. Reliance solely on an investigation report was therefore insufficient to treat the amount as unexplained cash credit.

Reasonable cause under the Income-tax Act can preclude penalties for accepting and repaying loans in cash where an immediate, bona fide emergency requires funds. Cash obtained for overseas immigration-related arrangements was treated as arising from genuine transactions because the lenders' identity and creditworthiness, and the transactions' genuineness, were accepted; no evidence linked the funds to unaccounted income or tax evasion. In those circumstances, a technical breach without deliberate disregard of law, contumacious conduct or evasion intent does not warrant penalty. The same emergency-based reasonable cause extends to cash repayment of the genuine loans, protecting against penalties for both acceptance and repayment.

Separate transfer-pricing benchmarking of delayed trade receivables is not automatically excluded because the principal international transactions were tested under the transactional net margin method. Where the comparable companies' working-capital-adjusted margin is lower than the assessee's margin, the opportunity cost of extended credit is treated as absorbed in the profitability analysis, so no separate interest adjustment is required. The stated working-capital adjustment and margins require verification; on verification, the adjustment for interest on trade receivables must be deleted if that margin comparison is established.

Dispensing units installed at petroleum retail outlets qualify as new plant or machinery for investment allowance where refining, marketing and retail sale form one integrated and indivisible business of manufacture or production. The units were accepted as plant and machinery for depreciation and were not excluded from the statutory definition. As regulated petrol and diesel sales require dispensing units at the terminal retail stage, the assets need not be directly used in the physical manufacturing process. The relevant requirement is that the company is engaged in manufacture or production. Accordingly, such dispensing units are eligible for investment allowance under section 32AC.

Under the Transactional Net Margin Method, differences affecting net margins require comparability adjustments. Excess employee costs incurred during an initial operational ramp-up because anticipated business did not materialise may justify an underutilisation adjustment. The adjustment should not be calculated by applying an employee-cost differential, derived from turnover, to total revenue. Instead, the excess must be quantified by comparing the assessee's employee-cost-to-total-cost ratio with the average ratio of the final comparables and reducing the resulting excess employee cost from operating cost. The arm's length margin is then redetermined on that basis.

A valid assessment requires a notice under section 143(2) from the Assessing Officer holding jurisdiction. Where the original notice was issued by another officer, the officer completing the assessment must either issue a fresh notice or establish a valid jurisdictional transfer through an order under section 127 or CBDT transfer. Absence of a notice from the jurisdictional Assessing Officer is a mandatory jurisdictional defect and cannot be cured. The assessment was therefore treated as without jurisdiction and quashed.

Binding interim judicial directions restraining tax deduction on leave travel concession payments involving foreign travel override the employer's statutory withholding obligation for the period those directions remain operative. Although the underlying exemption was unavailable on the merits, a later decision resolving that issue could not retrospectively impose default liability where the employer complied with the interim directions. The employer therefore could not be treated as an assessee in default under section 201(1), and consequential interest under section 201(1A) was not chargeable.

Reassessment notices for Assessment Year 2015-16 issued on or after 1 April 2021 were required to be dropped because reassessment could not be completed within the limitation period prescribed by the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Act, 2020. A notice issued under section 148 on 31 March 2022 was therefore time-barred, lacked legal authority, and could not confer jurisdiction on the Assessing Officer. The assessment founded on that notice was consequently quashed.

Rectification under section 154 is confined to errors that are obvious, patent and self-evident from the record. An alleged error involving inclusion of capital receipts, allowability of expenditure, and computation of taxable income following denial of exemption requires factual verification, legal interpretation and substantive adjudication; it is therefore outside rectification jurisdiction. As the same computation dispute was pending in the quantum appeal, it could not be reopened through rectification proceedings. The alleged computational error is not a mistake apparent from the record and is not rectifiable under section 154.

Compensation paid by a co-producer and director to settle film-production litigation was treated as business expenditure where the liability arose from professional obligations connected with timely project completion and commercial litigation in which the individual was personally impleaded. Consent terms and later judicial payment directions established that the liability had crystallised and had a sufficient professional nexus. The expenditure's true character, rather than its incorrect classification as bad debt in the return, governed deductibility. Lack of direct contractual privity under a later memorandum, earlier denial of liability, absence of recipient income, and the recipient's relationship with a production partner did not negate that nexus. Deduction was available under Section 37(1).

Cash deposits during demonetisation may be treated as unexplained investment where claimed accumulated salary savings are supported only by self-prepared statements, lack contemporaneous evidence and corresponding bank withdrawals, and subsequent transfers do not satisfy the test of human probabilities. However, an enhanced tax rate for unexplained income introduced prospectively does not apply to deposits made before its effective date. The addition remains sustainable, but tax must be computed under the law applicable when the deposits were made.

Section 56(2)(vii)(b) did not apply to an HUF where the sale agreement, patta and encumbrance certificate showed that its Karta acquired the immovable property in an individual capacity. The existing reassessment record was merely evaluated by the first appellate authority, so no inadmissible additional evidence was relied upon under Rule 46A. As the Revenue produced no cogent material that the HUF funded the purchase or that the property was an HUF asset, the HUF PAN's inadvertent inclusion in the sale deed did not establish ownership. The addition was deleted.