IIOs and IIIOs must maintain and produce records, information, documents, books, and registers for investigation and inspection. IIOs require Board-approved policies addressing electronic record maintenance, data security, cybersecurity, backups, business continuity, archival, and oversight, with policy, claims, and reinsurance records held in Indian data centres. Records must be reconciled with audited financials where relevant, retained for at least seven years or longer where legally required, and made accessible to authorised personnel. Officers and outsourced service providers must produce material in their custody when required.

Special additional excise duty on aviation turbine fuel cleared for export is revised by substituting the entry at serial number 1, column (4), with a rate of Rs. 15 per litre. The amendment updates the relevant duty table and applies from 16 September 2026, the date of publication in the Official Gazette.

The designated trial-court arrangement for money-laundering offences in Himachal Pradesh is amended. The Additional Sessions Judge (CBI), Shimla is specified to try offences punishable under section 4 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 for the districts of Shimla, Kinnaur, Solan and Sirmaur at Nahan. The amendment substitutes the prior court and territorial-area entries for those districts, thereby defining the competent court and territorial jurisdiction for these trials.

Special additional excise duty on exports of petrol and diesel is amended by substituting the applicable rates: petrol at Rs. 0.5 per litre and diesel at Rs. 20 per litre. The revised rates apply to the specified petroleum exports from 16 September 2026, being the date of publication in the Official Gazette.

For completed and unabated assessment years, Section 153A permits interference with assessments that had attained finality only where incriminating material unearthed during the search relates to the relevant year. Valuation-difference additions unsupported by seized incriminating material cannot be sustained merely through a search assessment. Consequently, additions made for such years without identified incriminating search material are unsustainable, and deletion of those additions stands sustained in favour of the assessees.

The time limit for issuing orders under section 73(9) for recovery of tax not paid or short paid, or input tax credit wrongly availed or utilised, is extended. For financial year 2018-19, the order issuance deadline is extended until 30 April 2024. For financial year 2019-20, the deadline is extended until 31 August 2024.

Export General Manifest errors identified in listed shipping bills require correction under the prescribed procedure, or filing of the relevant departure manifest, to enable post-export benefits and incentives. The person in charge of a conveyance carrying export goods must deliver a departure manifest to the proper officer before the conveyance leaves the customs station. Incorrect departure manifests can delay export incentives. Exporters, customs brokers, shipping lines, custodians and other concerned parties should rectify the identified EGM errors or file the required departure manifests.

Recognised pre-shipment inspection agencies may, during a one-time seven-day transitional period, issue backlog Pre-Shipment Inspection Certificates for inspections completed before 25 August 2026 where system restrictions prevented certificate issuance. Thereafter, each Pre-Shipment Inspection Certificate must be generated and issued within two days of inspection; the system permits issuance only within that period. Certificate uploads must be made from the same geographical location or country in which the inspection occurred. All other requirements governing the revised pre-shipment inspection agency and certificate process remain unchanged.

State GST officers may conduct initial document verification of inter-State consignments but cannot detain, seize or confiscate goods merely passing through their State. Cross-empowerment under CGST and IGST laws requires both administrative allocation of the taxpayer to the State and assignment of the relevant proper-officer function; it is not unrestricted authority. Coercive action under Sections 129 and 130 additionally requires territorial and fiscal nexus, including the State's entitlement to IGST apportionment under Section 17. For consignments originating and destined outside the intercepting State, discrepancies should be referred to the consignor's or consignee's proper officers. Confiscation requires statutory grounds, material supporting intent to evade tax where applicable, and notice and hearing; transit checks cannot become valuation assessments.

Sections 73 and 74 of the CGST Act permit a common show cause notice covering multiple tax periods or financial years, as the expressions "for any period" and "such periods" do not impose a financial-year-specific bar. Financial-year references in the order-limitation provisions operate as separate limitation benchmarks for each demand component; consolidation cannot extend limitation or defeat period-wise objections. Section 74 requires disclosed material supporting fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts to evade tax, and cannot be invoked merely because tax remains unpaid. Rule 142 and FORM GST DRC-01 regulate electronic notice communication without restricting consolidation. Notice-specific allegations, quantified demands, hearing rights, reasoned orders and limits on confirmation remain applicable.

Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act applies where a cheque issued for a legally enforceable debt is returned unpaid, statutory demand is served, and the drawer fails to pay within the prescribed period. Admitted signatures on the cheque, promissory notes and undertakings provide prima facie support for the complaint and engage the Section 139 presumption of liability. Return of a cheque because a clearing portal rejects its MICR code does not, on these facts, displace those requirements. Challenges to the underlying debt and consequences of a bank merger are matters for trial.

Revision under Section 263 requires an assessment order to be both erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue. Where the Assessing Officer specifically examined delayed employees' PF/ESI contributions, obtained an explanation and allowed the deduction consistently with binding High Court precedent then in force, the assessment order cannot be revised merely because a later Supreme Court ruling adopts a contrary position. The subsequent ruling does not retrospectively make the earlier assessment erroneous or prejudicial. Revisional jurisdiction was therefore invalidly assumed, and the deduction remained allowable for the assessment under review.

Website design, development and maintenance must conform to applicable governmental and agency guidelines, and the website must be registered under the gov.in or nic.in domain. Hosting arrangements must account for networking, storage, security, backups and disaster recovery. Content may be organised for easy access and archival retrieval, with outdated material removed or archived to maintain accuracy. Security safeguards must address cyber threats and natural disasters, with security audits by CERT-In-empanelled agencies required before hosting and after major updates.

Interest on loan accounts treated as non-performing assets is taxable only on credit to the profit and loss account or actual receipt; interest neither recognised nor credited is not taxable. A supplier payment cannot be characterised as bogus merely because the supplier failed to comply with a notice, without evidence corroborating the transaction. A deduction for dividend distribution requires a factual processing basis and procedural notice before disallowance. Commission expenditure cannot be meaningfully verified where notice information omits payee identities; proper payee particulars and relevant ledger records are required for fresh determination.

Foreign Universities must rank within the top 500 of the latest QS global overall or subject ranking, while Foreign Educational Institutions must be reputable in their home jurisdiction. Applicants must demonstrate financial capacity, suitable infrastructure and continuity of operations, and file governance approval, academic and financial plans, student-contingency arrangements, a degree-equivalence undertaking and a home-jurisdiction quality audit. Following expert appraisal, the Authority may grant in-principle approval, followed by conditional or unconditional registration.

Finality of income-tax settlement proceedings was central to the challenge against the determination of total income for multiple assessment years. The Settlement Commission had determined the taxpayer's income under section 245, and the resulting proceedings had attained finality, with payment directions already issued. No further question of law requiring adjudication remained. The High Court therefore affirmed the settlement determination and dismissed the writ petition.

Food-import controls designate authorised officers at notified points of entry under the Food Safety Standards Act and the Food Safety and Standards (Import) Regulations. ICD Dhanakya, Jaipur, is added as a food-import point of entry, increasing the notified network to 172 locations. Customs Superintendents, Appraisers, Inspectors and Examiners are designated as authorised officers at this ICD and SEZ location. Customs formations are to sensitise officers, with prior arrangements modified only to reflect this addition.

Functional comparability requires exclusion of a high-end e-publishing and digital-content provider from the benchmark for routine BPO services, particularly where acquisitions constitute extraordinary events affecting comparability. The arm's length price must therefore be recomputed without that comparable. Employees' ESI/PF contributions paid after the prescribed due date are not deductible where the former provident-fund grace period had been withdrawn and continuous online remittance remained available. A public holiday does not extend the statutory deadline merely because physical offices are closed, since impossibility relief is unavailable where electronic payment can be made. The employee-contribution disallowance consequently remains.

The Performance Review Committee must submit, in the fixed month of each year, a consolidated report to the Authority containing findings from each review area. The Authority shall take action on the report under the statutory mechanism in section 17(2) of the Act. The reporting process connects annual review findings with required regulatory action.

Any person may submit a written complaint in the prescribed form concerning an incident within specified statutory categories. The Committee registers and numbers each complaint, may seek necessary information or confirmation from the complainant, and submits a findings report to the Authority. The Authority may dismiss a complaint where no prima facie case exists, with intimation to the complainant and Committee, or forward a prima facie meritorious complaint to the concerned authority for action under applicable laws.