Assessing Officers must independently evaluate material and determine assessment issues; administrative supervision cannot displace their quasi-judicial discretion. Incorporating superior-authority directions or inputs without independent satisfaction renders an assessment legally unsustainable. For alleged on-money receipts, electronic communications and third-party statements require an opportunity for confrontation and cross-examination. The presumption concerning seized material is rebuttable and applies against the person from whom it is seized. WhatsApp chats concerning developed plots, unsupported by cash evidence, purchaser admissions, acknowledgments or other corroboration, cannot be extrapolated to undeveloped-plot sales where val.....

Penalty for accepting cash sale consideration under section 271D was examined in a co-owned property transaction involving an alleged contravention of section 269SS. The relevant circumstances included disclosure of the full sale consideration for taxation after receipt of cash and the absence of penalty against a co-owner participating in the same transaction. Applying the coordinate Bench approach on identical facts, the penalty was deleted. The discussion treats subsequent tax disclosure, comparable treatment of co-owners, and reasonable cause as material considerations in determining whether a cash-acceptance penalty should stand.

Interest on borrowings used to acquire plant, machinery, scrap, land and buildings held as current assets for sale in an asset-trading business is revenue expenditure. The proviso to section 36(1)(iii), which restricts interest deduction until an acquired asset is first put to use, does not apply where the assets are acquired solely for resale and are neither intended nor required to be used in manufacturing. Borrowings for buying and selling such assets are for business purposes. Acquisition-related expenses incurred in dealing in current assets for sale are likewise revenue expenditure allowable under section 37(1), rather than capital expenditure.

Club membership and subscription expenditure is deductible where its business purpose and nexus are established; an ad hoc disallowance requires identification of particular personal or non-business payments, resulting in deletion of the club-expense disallowance. Where own funds exceed exempt-income investments and borrowings serve specified business purposes, investments are presumed funded from own funds, eliminating interest disallowance under section 14A. Administrative disallowance must have a rational nexus to, and cannot exceed, exempt income. Internal handover, capitalisation and deployment records can establish that machinery was put to use, supporting depreciation and additional depreciation. Electrical installations integral to manufacturing machinery qualify as plant and machinery for additional depreciation. Both appeals were partly allowed.

Actuarially determined provision for accumulated non-encashable sick leave constitutes an accrued employee-benefit liability where employees earn paid future leave through services rendered during the relevant year. The employer's obligation to grant paid absence when leave is used remains a financial obligation, despite no employee right to receive cash for unused leave. Uncertainty over the employee or timing of future utilisation does not make a scientifically estimated liability contingent. As no payment is made in lieu of leave, leave-encashment payment conditions do not apply. The provision is deductible as an accrued business liability, and the disallowance was deleted.

Penalty for misreporting under section 270A(9) requires a notice identifying the precise statutory instance alleged, because each form of misreporting calls for a distinct explanation. An assessment for the year preceding a search must follow the prescribed reassessment procedure, and an invalid assessment may be challenged in penalty proceedings where it forms the penalty's foundation. Voluntary disclosure of additional professional income, even if accepted in assessment, does not by itself establish misreporting. Section 271AAD addresses false entries or omissions linked to fraudulent input tax credit arrangements and does not extend merely to unrecorded professional receipts represented by cash found in search.

Valuation of consideration for a limited patent-use licence turned on materially divergent expert reports applying an internationally accepted cost approach and a substantially higher departmental valuation. Neither valuation position was accepted in full. A lump-sum estimate was adopted in the interest of justice, expressly without precedential effect, fixing the amount attributable to the limited patent-use right at USD 900,000. Consequential computation was directed in accordance with law, and the appeal was partly allowed to that extent.

TDS credit omitted from an original return may be claimed through rectification where Form 26AS reflects the deduction and the corresponding income has been offered to tax. Mere failure to claim the credit in the original return should not result in its denial in those circumstances. The Assessing Officer must verify the TDS claim and inclusion of the related income before granting the credit.

Enhanced leave-encashment exemption for non-government employees is treated as a beneficial, curative fiscal measure addressing hardship from the previously unrevised limit. Such beneficial provisions receive liberal construction and apply to pending proceedings unless retrospective operation is expressly barred. On that basis, the enhanced ceiling under section 10(10AA) applies to Assessment Year 2021-22, allowing exemption of the full leave-encashment receipt within that ceiling and removing the related addition.

Jurisdictional defect in an assessment may be raised in collateral penalty proceedings where the assessment was made without a valid notice under section 143(2) from the jurisdictional Assessing Officer. An order made without jurisdiction is a nullity and may be challenged whenever enforcement or reliance is attempted, notwithstanding that the assessment has attained finality. Because the assessment was invalid and non est, the consequential penalty order was quashed.

Timely pronouncement of reserved judgments required release of an indirect-tax writ petition after the Bench could not adhere to stipulated timelines. Applying the principle concerning prompt delivery of reserved decisions, the matter was placed before the regular Bench hearing indirect-tax writ petitions. Interim status quo was directed to continue for four weeks, preserving the parties' existing position pending further hearing.

Customs Broker licence revocation requires a serious breach of primary regulatory obligations; address-change and Customs Station intimation failures, and signature-related irregularities, are procedural contraventions warranting penalty rather than revocation or security forfeiture. Electronic processing through ICEGATE means same-day clearances at multiple ports do not, without supporting evidence, prove licence subletting. Client due diligence does not require physical verification of premises, and undisclosed DRI notices cannot be inferred without proof of receipt. A Customs Broker's compliance-advice duty is limited to documents handled at entry or departure and does not extend to exporters' downstream excess RoSL claims. Licence revocation and security forfeiture were set aside, while procedural penalties were maintained or reduced.

Voluntary statements made by an importer, its proprietor and its agents during a Customs Act inquiry may be relied on as substantive admissions where they acknowledge under-invoicing and retail sale price misdeclaration. Denial of cross-examination does not breach natural justice where those persons cannot be compelled to depose against themselves. Original supplier invoices recovered from the importer's laptop and forensically examined in its presence constitute primary electronic evidence, without requiring a certificate applicable to secondary electronic records. Evidence of misdeclaration justified rejection of the declared transaction value and sequential redetermination under the Customs Valuation Rules. The consequential duty demand, confiscation and penalties were sustained.

Subsisting judicial orders require immediate compliance by the Ministry and affected parties unless stayed or modified. An intention to file a review petition does not justify withholding implementation of a restoration direction. The Registrar of Companies must restore the company's name to its register and reflect the company as active on the Ministry's website. Implementation remains subject to any subsequent order in a review application, preserving the respondent's position while ensuring prompt compliance with the existing restoration judgment.

Service of notice in insolvency proceedings is satisfied where repeated attempts through speed post and email, corrected address particulars, and further opportunities to respond provide reasonable opportunity before ex parte action. A corporate debtor that keeps its registered office non-functional cannot rely on resulting non-receipt to establish a breach of natural justice, absent a challenge to email service or evidence of incorrect particulars or mala fides. For a corporate guarantor, a demand guarantee may contractually treat the principal borrower's acknowledgment or balance confirmation as the guarantor's acknowledgment. Written settlement proposals acknowledging liability can therefore extend limitation, while the section 7 inquiry remains confined to financial debt and default.

Substitution of attached proceeds of crime with a bank guarantee does not justify release of identifiable immovable property under the PMLA. The statutory scheme aims to prevent enjoyment of assets derived from illegal activity and preserve them for confiscation or restitution. Releasing such property for use or transfer may enable its depletion, generate further funds, and legitimise income derived from it, undermining those objectives. The request for de-attachment and substitution with an equivalent bank guarantee was rejected, and the writ petition was dismissed.

Good corporate governance is central to development and depends on responsible governance, ethical practices, transparency, institutional accountability and professional excellence. Company Secretaries have an expanding role in strengthening governance practices through professional expertise. Professional institutions should promote governance standards, support institutional excellence, and evolve their practices in response to changing requirements. Their wider contribution lies in fostering a culture of ethical entrepreneurship, responsibility, transparency and sound governance.

Under the PMLA, a provisional attachment cannot be confirmed by relying on a subsequent FIR absent from the recorded reasons to believe, attachment order, and original complaint. Such an FIR may create a separate basis for fresh attachment but cannot retrospectively validate an earlier attachment. Attachment of alleged proceeds of crime also cannot continue once the underlying scheduled offences are not established or no longer survive. Quashing of the foundational FIRs or filing of closure reports extinguishes the basis for PMLA proceedings and consequential attachment. On these grounds, the provisional attachment and its confirmation were set aside.

Reverse-charge liability on foreign or intermediary bank charges deducted while transmitting export proceeds requires a taxable service provider-recipient relationship. Where the exporter neither engaged the banks nor owed them consideration, deductions from export proceeds do not establish that relationship and do not attract service tax under Banking and Other Financial Services. Regulatory dossier preparation and compilation for overseas pharmaceutical approvals must be classified by the activity actually performed, not the provider's technical qualifications. Preparing documentation from available information or published literature, without advice or scientific or technical assistance, is not Scientific or Technical Consultancy Service. The related service-tax demands, interest and penalties were unsustainable.

Exemption for construction of civil structures or other original works does not extend to a work order limited to transporting boulders, even where transportation, fixing and levelling support a Government or governmental-authority project. The activity remains outside the original-works exemption because it does not itself constitute construction or execution of original works. A subcontractor performing transportation for a railway-track project remains liable for service tax; use of that service by the main contractor as an input service does not alter its taxability. Service-tax liability on the subcontracted transportation work was therefore sustained.