A Customs Broker's acceptance of classification and valuation cannot bind an importer without proven authority to do so. Examination conducted in the Broker's presence therefore did not amount to examination in the importer's presence, and the assessment was vitiated by breach of natural justice. Visual examination alone did not establish that imported heavy melting scrap was misdeclared as to classification or value, particularly where the Department lacked specialist opinion, market enquiry or testing to support its assessment of secondary and defective coils. Confiscation, redemption fine and penalty were consequently unsustainable.

GST composition dealers cannot directly make inter-State outward sales of goods while remaining under the composition scheme. Movement of goods from one State to another pursuant to sale attracts the restriction, and payment or invoicing arrangements cannot cure it. A customer or payment originating in another State does not itself make a supply inter-State; actual delivery, movement and place-of-supply facts govern. A genuine independent reseller may separately make an inter-State sale, while businesses undertaking direct inter-State sales should operate under the regular GST scheme.

SEBI's Accredited Investor framework enables eligible investors and entities to obtain certification that may allow lower minimum investment thresholds for Portfolio Management Services, Alternative Investment Funds and other alternative investment products, along with applicable regulatory flexibilities. PMS Bazaar and NSDL Database Management Limited's Accreditation Agency facilitate end-to-end applications, subject to required documentation and prescribed payment. Assistance is available to individual investors and eligible clients of investment providers without additional platform, service or processing charges, while prescribed certification fees remain payable.

The amendments expand Ind AS 107 disclosures for investments, contingent cash-flow features and contracts referencing nature-dependent electricity. Entities must provide a single note on qualifying electricity contracts, covering cash-flow uncertainty, commitments, onerous-contract assessments, electricity purchases, unused electricity and related sales. Ind AS 109 defines these contracts, permits specified hedge-accounting designations, and sets expected-usage and transition requirements. Classification and measurement changes refine derecognition through electronic payment systems and the assessment of contractual cash flows as solely payments of principal and interest.

GST Facilitation Centres are designated for purposes under the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017, replacing the earlier designation of Facilitation Centres. Twelve GST Seva Kendras are specified across Gujarat. Each centre is assigned a Head of the Biometric Aadhaar Authentication Officer, designated as a State Tax Officer, as its contact person. Respective Joint Commissioners of State Tax are assigned as division-level contacts, creating an organised framework for biometric Aadhaar authentication and related functions under the Rules.

Importers claiming concessional-duty treatment must give one-time prior information, execute a continuity bond, provide pre-import consignment details, and upload the intimation with the bill of entry. Job work is permitted subject to prescribed intimations, challans, accounts, and a six-month retention limit at job-worker premises. Imported goods must be used for the intended purpose or re-exported within six months; clearance of unutilised or defective goods requires payment of differential duty and interest. Quarterly returns and detailed importer and job-worker accounts are mandatory, and contraventions attract penalties and duty-recovery action.

Penalties for shortages of duty-free gold and silver jewellery require evidence of intentional diversion to evade customs duty. Where the proprietorship concern itself reported the shortage, theft was indicated, and differential duty with interest was paid, penalties on the concern and the person supervising manufacturing operations do not sustain. Statements from persons unavailable for permitted cross-examination cannot be relied on without compliance with statutory conditions and corroboration; an unmatched police recovery does not conclusively establish involvement in removal of the goods. A proprietorship concern and its proprietor are legally the same entity, preventing separate penalties on both. Differential customs duty and interest remain payable, while all penalties are set aside.

Limitation for customs appeals permits exclusion of time during which appeal papers, filed within the prescribed period, remained before an incorrect forum; the first appeal was treated as timely and remanded for merits determination. An appeal emailed and dispatched within the statutory period could not be rejected as time-barred; alternatively, any marginal delay in physical receipt fell within the condonable period. Refund of customs duty paid under protest was available for finally assessed bills of entry where assessment accepted the importer's declared classification and no reclassification proceedings displaced the protest. Each bill of entry constituted a separate assessment, so proceedings concerning other bills could not defer refund. Refund was confined to finally assessed bills, excluding provisionally assessed bills.

Rejection of the declared transaction value for imported brass scrap required specific evidence of contemporaneous imports of identical goods under Rule 5. The Tribunal found that the authorities had not explained the revised classification of secondary defective brass pipes or supplied the requisite valuation particulars; visual examination alone could not displace the declared description, particularly where no tariff size restriction applied to brass scrap. The enhanced value and differential duty demand were therefore unsustainable. Misdeclaration was also not established because the contractual specification, broad tariff coverage, and chartered engineer's report conflicted with the departmental visual assessment, while no documentary evidence proved serviceability or misdeclaration. Confiscation, redemption fine and penalty were consequently set aside.

Registered persons with aggregate annual turnover not exceeding two crore rupees in financial year 2023-24 are exempt from furnishing the annual return for that financial year. The exemption operates under the first proviso to section 44 of the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Fraudulent diversion of duty-free SEZ scrap into the DTA vitiates advance-licence exemption, permits recovery of customs and central excise duty with interest, and supports invocation of the extended limitation period. Non-existent buyers, forged, cancelled or suspended licence documentation, and cash-funded payment arrangements establish fraudulent availment where goods were neither received by stated recipients nor used to meet export obligations. Recovery proceedings for duty not levied or short-levied remain available despite prior assessment and clearance of bills of entry. DRI-issued show-cause notices and adjudication by the Commissioner of Customs are valid under the statutory jurisdictional position. Segregating and processing mixe.....

Registration of a partnership firm was proved by the Registrar of Firms' memorandum and a certified Form-VIII admitted as additional evidence because it enabled judgment and furthered justice. The firm was therefore competent to institute the suit. Limitation for invoice-based recovery was not extended or suspended by winding-up proceedings, which are independent of a civil money-recovery suit. The claim was based on individual invoices rather than a running account, and the relied-on communication neither acknowledged the disputed debt nor constituted part-payment for those invoices. As the relevant invoices were already time-barred, the recovery suit was dismissed.

Insider trading liability under the 2015 PIT Regulations arises where a person possesses unpublished price sensitive information and trades in the company's shares, subject to a rebuttable presumption that the trade was motivated by that information. The listed defences are illustrative rather than exhaustive, but any additional defence must be comparable in nature. The intended use of sale proceeds and absence of profit do not negate liability. Disgorgement may equal wrongful gain or loss averted through the contravention. Breach of the prescribed insider-trading code of conduct may also attract penalty, while penalties may be reduced to the statutory minimum where circumstances justify it.

Limitation for operational-debt insolvency applications runs from the individual date of default for each due and payable invoice or payment claim, not from continuing non-payment or subsistence of an EPC contract. A written acknowledgment by the corporate debtor before limitation expires is required to reset limitation; unilateral legal notices do not do so. Completed contractual milestones may constitute operational debt, while suspension, idling and demobilisation claims are uncrystallised damages unless adjudicated. Prolonged suspension does not automatically frustrate or terminate an EPC contract where termination requires election and time is not essential. A genuine pre-existing dispute must be evident from prior conduct or communications. The time-barred insolvency application was set aside, without affecting contractual dispute-resolution remedies.

Distribution under a resolution plan among secured financial creditors may be determined through the Committee of Creditors' commercial wisdom, subject to the statutory minimum payable to dissenting financial creditors. A dissenting secured creditor cannot demand a larger share solely by relying on the value of its individual security interest. Pro rata allocation based on claims admitted by the resolution professional during CIRP, including stage-wise receipt of plan funds, is consistent with this principle. The approved distribution according to admitted claim ratios, rather than individual security interests, was sustained and the appeals were dismissed.

Section 37A of FEMA permits seizure where available material establishes a prima facie Section 4 contravention; final proof is reserved for adjudication. Tally data, emails, witness statements and overseas bank deposits may support an allegation of unauthorised foreign-exchange transfers without proving the ultimate use of every remitted amount. Property in India may be seized at equivalent value even where overseas accounts are held by a separate foreign entity, because that entity's legal personality does not displace FEMA's seizure power against the alleged contravener. Income-tax settlement provisions operate separately and do not override FEMA consequences. The refusal to confirm seizure was therefore interfered with and the appeal succeeded.

Money-laundering proceedings may survive compromise-based quashing of a scheduled-offence FIR because such quashing does not establish that the predicate offence never occurred or that no proceeds of crime exist. Quashing, discharge or acquittal on merits finding that the scheduled offence did not occur would remove that foundation. The PMLA inquiry may extend beyond the predicate investigation to property derived directly or indirectly from scheduled criminal activity, including allegations linked to a wider conspiracy. Bail requires satisfaction of the statutory twin conditions on a probabilistic assessment, without a mini-trial. Alleged control of forex entities, dummy directors, fund conversion and flight-risk conduct may defeat bail. Parity is unavailable where a co-accused's circumstances differ materially.

Property of equivalent value may be seized or frozen where direct proceeds of crime are unavailable; prior acquisition alone does not exclude property from action under the proceeds-of-crime definition. Retention of seized documents, digital devices and cash, and freezing of bank and Demat accounts were sustained where a majority shareholder and authorised signatory was linked to the company involved in alleged investment fraud, failed to deny material particulars, and did not disclose the property's source. A connected person likewise failed to establish an independent source for held funds and shares. The appeals challenging retention and freezing were dismissed.

Goods Transport Agency classification does not depend on a document being expressly titled a consignment note. Bills containing essential transportation particulars may qualify as consignment notes, and recipients' certificates confirming receipt of GTA services and reverse-charge tax payment support that classification. Service tax demands cannot rest solely on differences between ST-3 returns and Form 26AS or other Income Tax data without verification of books of account and underlying transactions, because such data do not determine taxable turnover under service tax law. Extended limitation cannot be invoked for alleged suppression where relevant facts were already available to the Department and ST-3 returns were regularly filed. The impugned demands were set aside with consequential relief.

Copyright was expressly excluded from the scope of intellectual property right service, which covered only rights recognised under Indian law. Royalties for a non-exclusive licence to pre-install and sub-license Microsoft operating software therefore concerned copyright exploitation rather than taxable intellectual property rights. Commercial use of information technology software became separately taxable only from 16 May 2008. Extended limitation could not apply where departmental audit and correspondence established knowledge of the activity, and reverse-charge tax would have been available as CENVAT credit, supporting revenue neutrality and absence of intent to evade.