Alternative statutory remedy is central where disputed questions of fact concern service of a show-cause notice, hearing notice and adjudication order. The dispute concerns the exercise of writ jurisdiction against an adjudication order when service of those notices and the order itself is contested. The Supreme Court declined to interfere with the High Court order and dismissed the special leave petition, leaving the impugned order undisturbed.

Fair hearing in budgetary support claims requires the claimant to receive an opportunity to explain discrepancies between an input tax credit declaration and a Chartered Accountant certificate submitted at the respondents' direction. Where the declaration contains an asserted error, the officer must call for an explanation and consider supporting material before concluding the claim on merits. A claim cannot be finally determined merely by relying on the discrepant declaration without this opportunity. The challenged order was set aside to that extent, with directions to permit supporting documents and reconsider the claim after a reasonable hearing.

Bail was granted to an accused alleged to have operated a firm used for fraudulent availment of input tax credit, although the firm was registered in his spouse's name. The High Court treated the investigation concerning the accused as almost complete and considered that certain co-accused had already received bail. Balancing the detention period against the nature and gravity of the allegations, it found that further custodial detention was unnecessary for the investigation. Release was subject to a bond and surety, monthly appearance before the Investigating Officer, and compliance until submission of the charge-sheet.

Section 16(5) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act overrides section 16(4) and preserves input tax credit entitlement for specified financial years where the return under section 39 was filed by 30 November 2021. For Financial Year 2018-19, a return filed on 23 October 2019 fell within the preserved period. Denial of the related input tax credit was therefore impermissible, and the Order-in-Original denying the claim was set aside and quashed.

Additional documentary evidence on the GST refund mismatch was admitted as vital to verifying its accounting and tax treatment. Because the evidence required verification by the Assessing Officer and the Revenue did not oppose admission, the adjustment reducing the returned business loss was set aside and remanded for fresh adjudication after a hearing. Outstanding trade payables arising from purchases could not be treated as unexplained cash credit where creditor-balance differences had been reconciled and supported by documentary evidence. In the absence of contrary material or precedent from the Revenue, deletion of that addition was upheld and the Revenue's appeal was dismissed.

Competent sanction under section 151 is a substantive jurisdictional safeguard for reassessment. TOLA extended the authority under section 151(i) only until 30 June 2021; for notices issued in July 2022, approval from the higher authority under section 151(ii) was required. Approval by the Principal Commissioner was neither substantial compliance nor curable under section 292B, so the reassessment and consequential addition were annulled. Penalty for failure to obtain a tax audit requires proof of business activity and legally relevant turnover exceeding the prescribed threshold. Purchases, delivery-based sales and unproved derivative transactions could not establish turnover; consistent investment treatment and capital-gains disclosure also demonstrated reasonable cause. The audit penalty was deleted.

Directly relevant additional evidence supporting commission paid to daily deposit collection agents was admitted because the lower authorities had not examined it, and the commission disallowance was remanded for fresh consideration. Interest estimated on non-performing loans to members was deleted because income from credit facilities provided by a co-operative society to its members qualified for deduction under section 80P(2)(a)(i), rendering the addition revenue neutral. Interest estimated by applying a uniform rate across housing, mortgage, personal, deposit-backed and overdraft loans was also deleted because those loan categories carried differential rates and the resulting enhanced income would qualify for the same deduction. The appeal was partly allowed.

Payments for a non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-sublicensable licence to use software internally do not constitute royalty under Article 12(3) of the India-USA DTAA where the licensor retains copyright and proprietary rights and the user cannot commercially exploit, modify, sublicense, reverse engineer or copy the software except for backup. Such payments concern use of a copyrighted article, eliminating withholding-tax liability as royalty. Payments for video-conferencing equipment and allied products are not fees for technical services merely because installation, setup and training accompany the supply. Withholding applies only to the separately identified installation, setup and training component, subject to the applicable India-Germany DTAA rate.

Income Disclosure Scheme, 2016 immunity protected declared long-term capital gains from further taxation where the taxpayer had disclosed the share-sale gains and paid the prescribed tax. ITAT therefore upheld deletion of the addition for differential share-sale proceeds under section 68. For unabated assessments under section 153A, additions require incriminating material found during the search of the taxpayer. Third-party investigation material and statements recorded in other proceedings did not satisfy that requirement. ITAT sustained deletion of additions relating to alleged bogus capital gains and short-term capital loss, dismissed the Department's appeals, and dismissed unpressed cross-objections.

For charitable trusts, fixed deposits and balances in a scheduled-bank savings account created from capital-asset sale proceeds constitute acquisition of another capital asset for capital-gains exemption under section 11(1A). A bank deposit is a permissible investment mode, and its status as a capital asset does not depend on the deposit duration. Eligibility requires sale proceeds to be invested only in prescribed modes; qualifying fixed deposits and savings balances therefore fall within the exemption.

Pecuniary jurisdiction over statutory notices under section 143(2) must comply with CBDT instructions allocating cases by returned-income limits. Where an Income-tax Officer issues the notice despite the returned income exceeding that officer's prescribed limit, the defect concerns pecuniary rather than territorial jurisdiction; the territorial-jurisdiction objection rule does not apply. CBDT instructions bind the Department, and issue of a jurisdictional notice by an officer without pecuniary authority is an illegality, not a procedural irregularity capable of validation under section 292BB. The notices and consequential assessment were therefore treated as void from inception and quashed; other grounds remained academic.

GST deregistration, subsequent non-filing of returns, a supplier's absence from its address, or vehicle discrepancies do not alone establish that documented purchases are bogus. Purchase orders, subcontract agreements, invoices, delivery records, e-way bills, GST records, attendance and project records, and banking payments support the genuineness of materials, labour, housekeeping and manpower transactions, particularly where books remain unrejected and contracts are undisputed. Incomplete third-party statements or chat extracts not supplied to the taxpayer, and not linked to its transactions, lack evidentiary force. Revenue must establish a nexus between alleged supplier fund diversion and taxpayer transactions; a taxpayer denying a transaction cannot be required to prove a negative.

Foreign leave travel concession paid to employees is taxable as salary and is not exempt. An employer-bank must deduct tax at source on those payments; this obligation is separate from recovery of tax from employees. A stay or suspension of recovery proceedings against employees does not remove the deduction obligation, which applies again once any stay is vacated. Bank branches were treated as assessees in default where tax was neither deducted nor recovered during periods without an operative stay. Interest for non-deduction is mandatory and consequential, although relief may be sought for stayed periods or where an employee has paid self-assessment tax.

Under TNMM, advertising, marketing and promotion expenditure included in operating costs cannot be separately benchmarked where inter-linked agency commission, advertising sales and marketing-service transactions have already been accepted at arm's length. A separate method for that horizontal cost item would distort the arm's-length determination; therefore, substantive and protective AMP adjustments were deleted. Whether working-capital adjustments were already reflected in the tested margins and comparable financials must be verified, since that would preclude a separate interest adjustment on outstanding receivables. The Form 26AS income mismatch, including claimed associated-enterprise receipts and mutual-agreement-procedure coverage, requires factual verification with admitted additional evidence. Both verification issues were remitted for fresh decision.

Foreign-currency loans repayable in US dollars were benchmarked using LIBOR plus 300 basis points rather than a domestic lending rate, and that transfer-pricing direction was sustained. Under TNMM, comparables must satisfy functional and product comparability; sectorally distinct engineering services and aluminium-capacitor manufacturing entities were excluded. No arm's-length interest adjustment applied to delayed associated-enterprise receivables where no interest was charged to either associated or non-associated enterprises and transaction pricing already reflected margins. Expenditure relating to investments could not be disallowed where no exempt dividend income was received or receivable during the year. The assessee's and Revenue's appeals were dismissed.

Revision for inadequate inquiry under section 263 requires a showing that the Assessing Officer's inquiry was inadequate; a different revisional view alone does not satisfy Explanation 2(a). Reassessment initiated on specific information about alleged penny-stock share transactions involved queries and consideration of contract notes, brokerage and ledger records, and bank statements. Acceptance of short-term capital gains as genuine was therefore a plausible view. The reassessment order was not erroneous or prejudicial to Revenue interests, the revision was annulled, and the proposed-addition challenge became infructuous.

High-sea merchant trading conducted through back-to-back USD sales, supported by letters of credit, may justify selecting the foreign associated enterprise as the tested party under the Resale Price Method where the Indian entity bears no significant inventory, collection, market or foreign-exchange risk and has minimal working-capital needs. The associated enterprise's trading margins with unrelated parties can serve as comparable uncontrolled transactions. Steel manufacturers are not functionally comparable to pure merchant traders because their functions, assets and risks materially differ. Currency conversion does not materially affect the analysis where both purchase and sale transactions are denominated in USD.

Expiry of the period for issuing a show-cause notice precluded further departmental proceedings concerning detained gold articles, as additional action would prolong the matter and cause undue harassment. The recorded collective weight of the gold bangle and chain in the release order was corrected. Release remained subject to payment of applicable customs duty and warehousing charges, but those charges were limited to the period ending on the original release order. Release also remained subject to any order passed in a pending Supreme Court SLP.

Natural rubber latex toy balloons are classified under the specific toy-balloon tariff heading rather than residual vulcanised-rubber or general festive-article headings. HSN Explanatory Notes expressly include toy balloons, and General Rule for Interpretation 1 gives priority to the heading that specifically describes their function; a notification clarification supports the same treatment. Deliberately changing classification from the toy heading to avoid BIS conformity requirements, coupled with incorrect exemption use, evidences mala fide intent and supports penal consequences for customs-duty evasion.

Customs valuation rules permit rejection of a declared transaction value where higher National Import Database values for contemporaneous identical goods give reasonable doubt as to its truth or accuracy. Comparable imports must be at the same commercial level, in comparable quantities and from the same country of origin; the lowest comparable value may be adopted. An importer's earlier self-assessed import does not displace such comparables where product specifications are absent from invoices and packing lists. Failure to issue a speaking assessment order does not itself invalidate the assessment where the importer may seek issuance of that order from the competent authorities.