GST-related tax fraud allegations based on non-response and non-payment of Central or State GST must be addressed under the CGST Act where proceedings under that special enactment have already commenced. Sections 4 and 5 of the BNSS preserve the investigative and procedural framework prescribed by special statutes, preventing recourse to general criminal law for offences governed by such statutes. On this basis, BNS prosecution for the alleged GST defaults, including the charge-sheet and cognizance order against the taxpayer, was set aside.

GST assessment and rectification orders are subject to the statutory appellate mechanism, requiring exhaustion of that alternative remedy before a writ challenge is directly entertained. Where a GST demand and rejection of a rectification application were challenged without first filing an appeal, the writ petition was dismissed on that ground. Liberty was granted to file the statutory appeal within 30 days; if filed within that period, it must be entertained without a limitation objection and decided on merits. All substantive contentions remain open in the appellate proceedings.

Leasing by a Town Panchayat of weekly-market entrance-fee collection rights to tender contractors is undertaken in its capacity as a public authority where it directly relates to the statutory function of markets and fairs. The phrase "in relation to" covers integral, incidental and ancillary arrangements needed to discharge that function. Contractors' collection under Panchayat-prescribed fees, receipts and conditions does not change the activity's statutory character or make it independently commercial. The leasing is neither a supply of goods nor a supply of services and therefore falls outside GST under the applicable notification.

Bovine semen sorting, a laboratory process separating X-bearing and Y-bearing sperm cells, is a value-addition, testing and separation service performed on biological material. It neither constitutes nor directly supports livestock rearing, feeding, breeding management or animal husbandry, and is not an intermediate production process by way of job work relating to rearing of animals. In the absence of a specific scientific and technical service entry, it falls within SAC 998349 as other technical and scientific services, attracting GST at 18% without exemption.

Input tax credit on land-survey charges incurred to identify alternate land for afforestation obligations is unavailable where the land is surrendered to the Forest Department, written off, and generates no independent economic benefit or taxable outward supply. The survey services are not used in the course or furtherance of business, so the Section 16(1) requirement is not met. Surveys connected with golf-course development concern immovable property developed on own account, while surveys for surrendered land relate to written-off land; the related credit is treated as blocked under Section 17(5), including Section 17(5)(h). Land transactions are outside the scope of supply under Schedule III.

CBDT Circular No. 13/2023 specifically governs condonation applications by co-operative societies that filed delayed returns while claiming deduction under section 80P for covered assessment years, displacing the general framework in Circular No. 09/2015 for refunds and loss carry-forwards. Reliance solely on the general circular without considering the specific circular reflects non-application of mind. COVID-19 restrictions and delayed statutory audit reports routed through the State Audit Department may constitute genuine hardship under Circular No. 13/2023. Condonation relief under section 119(2)(b) should be applied liberally rather than defeated on a hyper-technical basis, enabling consideration of a qualifying section 80P claim on merits.

Reassessment of the existence of a permanent establishment cannot revisit an issue already examined during scrutiny merely because the assessment order did not expressly record a finding. Where subscription arrangements and the agent relationship were disclosed and considered, reopening would improperly cure the Assessing Officer's failure to record a conclusion, undermining assessment finality. Reopening after four years from a scrutiny assessment also requires failure to make a full and true disclosure of material facts. As that jurisdictional condition was absent and the notice was issued beyond the statutory six-year period, the reassessment notice was quashed without deciding whether a permanent establishment existed in India.

Succession of a firm by a company satisfies section 47(xiii) where all assets and liabilities immediately before succession vest in the company and partners receive only company shares. Pre-succession capital withdrawals, asset sales and changes in partners' profit-sharing ratios do not, absent a statutory restriction, disqualify the succession or make it a taxable transfer. Search-assessment proceedings require incriminating material: routine board resolutions, no-objection certificates, legal notes, valuation reports and firm-constitution records generated in ordinary business are not incriminating. In their absence, assessment under section 153A is not maintainable, and the departmental appeal was dismissed.

Section 10(23FB) exemption is available to a venture capital fund registered as a trust where it operates separately auditable contributory schemes; each scheme need not obtain separate SEBI registration, although its private placement memorandum must be submitted. For the associated-company test, trustees' shares count only when held personally, not when held fiduciary on the Fund's behalf, so fiduciary holdings do not count toward the 15% threshold. A valid, uncancelled SEBI registration establishes the fund's statutory status; absent regulatory action over VCF Regulation breaches, the Income-tax Department cannot independently rely on alleged breaches to deny exemption. The Revenue's appeal was dismissed and the exemption sustained.

Section 270A penalties for under-reporting or misreporting are inapplicable where an Advance Pricing Agreement governs a modified return, the royalty transaction is fully disclosed, and the revised arm's-length royalty rate is reflected in total income. A CSR expenditure deduction claim should not attract penalty where supported by binding Tribunal precedent, particularly if the underlying addition is deleted. Likewise, an education cess claim made under then-prevailing High Court precedent should not be penalised merely because a later retrospective amendment requires its withdrawal. These principles preserve the APA framework and protect bona fide, disclosed claims subsequently displaced by legal change.

Transfer-pricing analysis of spare replacement services depends on the entity's actual functions rather than its formal designation. A business that merely supplies and holds spares under an associated enterprise's directions, without control over customers or resale prices, is characterised as a captive service provider rather than a trader. That functional characterisation supports use of the transactional net margin method with appropriate comparables to determine arm's length price, instead of the resale price method. The discussion addresses the distinction between TNMM and RPM where resale functions and pricing control are absent.

Modified returns of income filed following business reorganisation must be considered within the assessment proceedings already pending for the relevant assessment year. A draft assessment order does not conclude those proceedings, as the Dispute Resolution Panel process remains part of the assessment machinery until a final appealable order is issued. Section 170A does not extinguish the existing assessment or permit a separate, parallel scrutiny process for the modified return. A scrutiny notice issued without jurisdiction cannot support a transfer pricing reference; consequential Transfer Pricing Officer proceedings and notices founded on that scrutiny are unsustainable and liable to be quashed.

Reassessment under section 148A requires information that rationally and directly suggests income escapement; mere suspicion, a need for further scrutiny, or a verification objective is insufficient. The material and the taxpayer's response must be considered in a speaking order before a case is treated as fit for reassessment. Treating an entire trust's expenditure over several years as unexplained, despite accounts, bank records and vouchers, without identifying a false explanation or unaccounted amount, constitutes an impermissible roving or fishing inquiry. The reassessment order and consequential notice for the relevant assessment year were set aside.

Valid information for reassessment must point to income that escaped tax, not receipts disclosed, accounted for and taxed by the resulting company following a corporate demerger. Transactions appearing under the demerged entity's PAN because tax was deducted in its name before demerger sanction do not, without more, establish escapement. The extended reassessment period applies only where books, documents or evidence reveal previously undisclosed income meeting the prescribed threshold; material requiring only correlation of already disclosed transactions is insufficient. On these grounds, reassessment for the relevant assessment year was set aside as unsupported by valid information and time-barred.

Service of reassessment notices under section 148A(b) must provide the petitioner a genuine opportunity to respond. Where notices and the section 148A(d) order were sent to a secondary email address and a former residential address, a further response opportunity was warranted. The reassessment notice and order, assessment, consequential demands, penalty orders and recovery notice were quashed, while reassessment proceedings were restored and the petitioner was permitted to respond within the stipulated time. Merits remained open.

Acceptance of an alternative concession before the Tribunal precluded the assessee from challenging the resulting disallowance of agricultural loss relating to saplings. Because the assessee had accepted the disallowance as an alternative contention, the High Court declined the proposed questions and dismissed the appeals. The principle applied was that a party cannot pursue an appeal against an order reflecting its own concession.

Reassessment requires the prescribed preliminary inquiry and independent application of mind; reliance solely on external reports fails the statutory preconditions and renders initiation without jurisdiction. An approved corporate insolvency resolution plan precludes reassessment or revision of pre-effective-date claims that were not included in the plan, as such claims are frozen or extinguished under the overriding insolvency framework. Complete disclosure of relied-upon third-party statements and materials is necessary to afford a fair rebuttal opportunity; non-disclosure breaches natural justice. Reassessment must also commence within the Income-tax Act's prescribed limitation period; proceedings initiated after that period are invalid.

Transfer-pricing benchmarking of consultancy and civil-contracting services requires functional and financial comparability. Crux Consultants Pvt. Ltd. lacked publicly available audited financial statements and verifiable functional disclosures for the relevant year, preventing reliable analysis. Mahindra Consulting Engineers Ltd.'s multidisciplinary infrastructure and project-advisory operations, innovative project capabilities, and brand-related advantages materially differed from the assessee's profile. Kitco's substantial government and state-run project revenue and diversified activities, together with DRA Consultants Ltd.'s failure of the employee-cost filter, made all four unsuitable comparables. Their inclusion in the comparable set was set aside, while consequential matters remained open.

Turnover mismatches between service-tax and income-tax returns do not, by themselves, establish suppressed turnover where a real estate developer consistently recognises income under the percentage of completion method. Service tax may apply when customer advances are received, while income is recognised according to actual project completion. Audited books, tax-audit disclosures recording advances as liabilities, project-wise workings, and the absence of defects in the accounting method support the stated income recognition. On these facts, the alleged suppressed-turnover addition was deleted, and the consequential penalty for under-reporting of income did not survive.

Electronic uploading of Dispute Resolution Panel directions on the ITBA portal constitutes receipt in faceless assessment proceedings for calculating the period for a final assessment under section 144C(13). A subsequent physical or manual receipt by the Assessing Officer does not extend that limitation. Directions uploaded on 30 December 2025 made the final assessment completed on 19 February 2026 time-barred; it was treated as null and void, while the remaining grounds were left open.