Departmental exoneration does not automatically require termination of criminal proceedings because departmental and criminal processes are independent, rely on their respective evidence, and apply different standards of proof. At the discharge stage, the inquiry is whether prosecution material discloses the ingredients of the alleged offences or creates strong suspicion requiring trial. Prima facie material relating to conspiracy, illegal gratification, facilitation of gold smuggling, and the accused persons' alleged roles supports continuation of the prosecution. Proof of demand and the evidentiary weight of the material remain matters for trial.

Timely requests for duty quantification can preserve the right to redeem confiscated goods where Customs authorities quantify redemption fine and penalty but fail to quantify the applicable duty. Although unexercised redemption options ordinarily result in absolute confiscation after the prescribed period under the Customs Act, delay cannot be attributed solely to the person seeking redemption when the required duty figure was requested within time and remains unprovided. Redemption remains available on payment of the quantified duty, redemption fine, penalty, and applicable interest.

A genuinely issued duty-free import licence procured through fraud or misrepresentation at the export-obligation certification stage is voidable, not void, and remains effective until cancelled through the prescribed process. A bona fide purchaser who acquired such an uncancelled licence for value without notice of the original licence-holder's irregularity is protected from liability for customs duty, interest and redemption fine on imports under that licence. This protection does not extend to forged instruments that were never issued by the competent authority.

Supreme Court found no ground warranting interference in a customs-related special leave petition and dismissed it after considering the matter in detail. Pending applications were also disposed of. The challenged matter therefore received no further intervention at the special-leave stage, and the petitioner's requested relief was not granted on the grounds presented.

Rectification under section 254(2) applies where a remand direction conflicts with findings already recorded. Compulsory convertible debentures, having been treated wholly as debt until conversion rather than artificially split into debt and equity components under Ind AS-32, required no fresh transfer-pricing benchmarking where the interest rate on the debt component had already been accepted as arm's length. The conflicting direction for de novo benchmarking was deleted. Consequently, the interest adjustment attributed to a purported equity component and the related disallowance were unsustainable and deleted.

Charitable-registration applications rejected for identified procedural or documentary deficiencies require category-specific reconsideration confined to those deficiencies and related statutory requirements. Delays caused by bona fide reliance on advisers or communication difficulties may be condoned to permit merits adjudication. Subsequently obtained or pending State public-trust registration requires verification rather than automatic denial under section 12AB. Genuineness of activities must be assessed from accounts, actual activities and supporting material, with disclosure of adverse material and an effective rebuttal opportunity. Curable Form No. 10AB defects require permissible rectification, while substantive conditions and limitation remain applicable. Connected section 80G applications require separate examination once the section 12AB premise is restored.

Corporate guarantee commission for borrowings of an overseas group entity is benchmarked at 0.5% using transaction-specific comparability. A parent-company guarantee for an overseas subsidiary, accepted at the same rate, provides a reliable internal indicator. Bank guarantees issued in ordinary banking business are not comparable to intra-group corporate guarantees. Nor does the yield differential on five-year unsecured bonds based on notional credit ratings reliably measure a guarantee effective for about 40 months. The transfer-pricing adjustment must therefore be recomputed by restricting the arm's length guarantee commission to 0.5%.

For non-searched persons, the deemed date of search under the first proviso to Section 153C(1) governs computation of both the six-year and extended ten-year assessment blocks. Binding jurisdictional precedent treats the relevant date as the receipt or handover of seized books, documents or assets to the Assessing Officer having jurisdiction over that person, rather than the date of the original search. Where the satisfaction note and notice arise in financial year 2021-22, the permissible ten-year block runs from assessment year 2013-14 through assessment year 2022-23. Assessment year 2012-13 consequently falls outside that block.

Advance pricing agreement coverage for earlier years does not bind benchmarking for an uncovered year, but remains persuasive where the transaction, methodology and functional, asset and risk profile continue; departure requires material differences. Comparable companies accepted in the preceding year should not be removed solely under a turnover filter absent a finding that turnover materially affects operating margins, subject to other comparability requirements. A comparable exceeding the adopted related-party transaction threshold must be excluded because segmenting related-party income and expenditure does not eliminate the influence of controlled transactions on overall profitability. Where revised comparables place the tested party's operating margin within the arm's-length percentile range, no transfer-pricing adjustment is warranted.

Foreign companies qualify as eligible assessees under the statutory dispute-resolution procedure. Where a prejudicial variation is proposed, the Assessing Officer must first issue a draft assessment order, allowing the foreign company to accept the variation or object before the Dispute Resolution Panel. A final assessment may be completed only after following the prescribed process. Issuing a final assessment order without a prior draft order breaches a mandatory requirement and invalidates the assessment.

Rebate under Section 87A is available against tax payable on short-term capital gains taxable at special rates under Section 111A where the taxpayer opts for the Section 115BAC(1A) regime. Section 87A applies to tax liability on total income without distinguishing normal-rate income from special-rate capital gains. Neither Section 111A nor Section 115BAC(1A) expressly excludes such gains from the rebate, and the concessional tax regime does not impliedly limit the independent rebate entitlement. Tribunal decisions supporting this interpretation were not displaced by contrary High Court or Supreme Court authority.

Section 87A permits a rebate from income tax on total income without excluding tax on short-term capital gains taxed at special rates under Section 111A for the relevant period. Section 111A contains no corresponding restriction. By contrast, the express exclusion for long-term capital gains under Section 112A(6) shows that any restriction on special-rate income requires specific enactment. Section 115BAC(1A) does not limit the independently available rebate, and a proposed prospective amendment cannot restrict the unamended provision. Rebate is therefore available against tax payable on such short-term capital gains.

Section 69C unexplained-expenditure additions require the Revenue to displace reliable substantiating evidence. Labour and manpower expenses supported by invoices, ledger accounts, bank payments after tax deduction, audited accounts and GST records cannot be treated as unexplained merely because the service provider failed to answer a third-party notice, particularly where no further enquiry contradicts the evidence. Purchase entries included in closing work-in-progress, followed by return of goods, no payment and reversal of GST input credit, do not create unexplained expenditure where they produce no effective deduction or taxable-income impact. Documented transactions and neutralised purchase entries therefore do not justify an unexplained-expenditure addition.

Income-tax additions for alleged unrecorded coal purchases require independent evidence linking third-party search material to the taxpayer. Where books are not rejected and no abnormality in production, consumption, input-output ratios or recorded sales is established, a net-profit estimate based on suspected outside-the-books trading is speculative and cannot stand. Likewise, alleged under-invoicing of mill-scale sales cannot be established solely through a retracted statement and CCTV footage when the cash is recorded and supported by available cash balances. Additions based on uncorroborated material, retracted statements and presumptive estimations are deleted.

Reasonable cause may preclude penalties for failures to deduct or collect tax where a bona fide belief is objectively supportable. Payment of rent to a Government-owned company may support a genuine understanding that tax deduction is not required, particularly where the recipient has the character of a State instrumentality. Construction scrap generated through labour and materials may be regarded as outside tax-collection requirements where it does not arise from a manufacturing process. On these principles, bona fide beliefs concerning both obligations can constitute reasonable cause and prevent penalty.

Foreign tax credit claimed under Sections 90/90A is not defeated solely because Form No. 67 was filed after the prescribed timeline. Rule 128(9), which requires furnishing the form, operates as a directory procedural requirement where the credit was claimed in the return and the delay does not undermine the substantive entitlement. The credit remains available subject to the Assessing Officer verifying the relevant facts and supporting documents after providing an opportunity of hearing.

Section 11(1)(a) permits charitable trusts to retain the statutory 15% accumulation independently of the specified accumulation regime under section 11(2). Accumulation beyond that limit remains available where Form No. 10 is furnished by the valid extended return-filing deadline under Rule 17 read with section 139(1). Charitable exemption should not be denied solely because Form No. 10BB was electronically furnished late when the audit report was available before return processing and the substantive exemption conditions were satisfied. Procedural delay in prescribed filings does not defeat the exemption where the relevant form is timely under an extended deadline or the audit report is available before proceedings conclude.

Repeated cash deposits followed by similar self-withdrawals and redeposits may establish circulation of the same funds, requiring unexplained-money additions to be computed on the net peak credit rather than gross deposits. Opening cash balance, verified net agricultural receipts, and other disclosed income constitute explained sources and must be credited when determining any unexplained peak. Only the residual unexplained amount remains liable to addition. The amended tax-rate provision for unexplained income, effective from 1 April 2017, applies to Assessment Year 2017-18.

Section 194C(6) TDS exemption for small goods-carriage contractors requires a declaration and PAN, with sufficient particulars to establish eligibility where inquiries reveal discrepancies. Freight-payment and vehicle-registration details may be material in that assessment, but non-verification by the deductor or departure from the Circular No. 19/2015 format alone does not defeat the exemption. Identified declaration defects must be put to the deductor for explanation or cure. Under the first proviso to Section 201(1), physical Form 26A certificates must be examined to verify whether payees reported the freight income and discharged the related tax. Default status and consequential interest require determination after applying these standards.

Interest on bank overdraft funds advanced for a proposed business land acquisition may retain revenue character where the acquisition is abandoned and the advance is refunded before any asset comes into existence. The deductibility of such expenditure is at least legally supportable and debatable; disallowance in quantum assessment alone does not establish concealment of income or furnishing inaccurate particulars. Accordingly, a revenue-expenditure claim of this nature, when not outrightly unsustainable, does not justify concealment penalty under Section 271(1)(c).