BRICS members and partner countries are encouraged to link payment systems, expand local-currency trade settlement, and make digital trade globally accessible. Market-access priorities include opening goods and services markets, reducing non-tariff barriers, simplifying regulatory procedures, and facilitating faster consignment clearance. Proposed cooperation also addresses diversified supply chains, professional qualification recognition, agricultural technology, trade-finance access for micro, small and medium enterprises, digital trade documentation, and platforms for agricultural commodity trading and investment cooperation.

Government services supplied to business entities for consideration, including grants of licences and privileges, are generally taxable under GST through reverse charge. State Government grants of licences for alcoholic liquor for human consumption against licence or application fees are, however, treated as neither a supply of goods nor a supply of services. The corresponding pre-GST service was exempted from Service Tax for the relevant period. This special dispensation is limited to alcoholic liquor licences and does not apply to other fee-based licences or privileges.

Appellate courts may allow pleadings to be amended to introduce res judicata, subject to ordinary amendment principles, including delay and an adequate explanation for not raising the plea earlier. Availability of all relevant material on record can support, but is not indispensable to, such an amendment. Res judicata bars a later declaratory suit where the same material issue between the same contesting parties was finally determined earlier, even if the reliefs differ or additional parties are joined. A prior determination that an agreement and surety bond remained enforceable through ratification therefore precludes renewed litigation over non-compliance with Article 299.

A registered non-profit organisation is a person with valid registration under a specified provision for the purposes of Part B. The status applies only while that registration remains uncancelled.

Registration for Part B concerning NPOs includes provisional registration, provisional approval and approval recognised under the specified income-tax registration and exemption framework, including registration under section 332. It excludes approval relating to the specified donor-deduction regime and approval under section 354.

A registered person who inadvertently filed a NIL refund claim in FORM GST RFD-01A/RFD-01 may seek refund again for the same period by filing under the "Any Other" category with the required supporting documents. For specified unutilised input tax credit refund categories, refiling requires that no subsequent-period refund claim under the same category has been filed. The proper officer examines eligibility, determines the admissible amount, may require electronic credit ledger debit through FORM GST DRC-03, and may issue the prescribed refund and payment orders after proof of debit.

Commercial activity for purposes of Part B concerning NPOs includes trade, commerce, business, and services connected with trade, commerce or business, where a cess, fee or other consideration is received. Its characterisation is unaffected by the use, application or retention of the resulting income.

Recognition of bullion exchanges and bullion clearing corporations requires demutualised companies with fit-and-proper management and shareholders, compliant ownership and governance structures, prescribed net worth, and adequate infrastructure. Exchanges must provide screen-based trading, real-time surveillance, member regulation, grievance redressal and continuity systems. Clearing corporations must maintain risk-management, netting, novation, settlement-guarantee, member-connectivity and orderly wind-down arrangements. Every exchange must use a bullion clearing corporation for clearing and settlement, and settlement obligations determined under approved bye-laws are final, irrevocable and binding.

GST classification separates operational support services for petroleum, natural gas and mining extraction under heading 9986 from geological, geophysical, consulting, mineral exploration and evaluation services under heading 9983. Extraction support includes well-related operations, test drilling connected with extraction and contract operation of extraction units. Geological and geophysical prospecting, feasibility studies, project evaluation, surveying and mineral evaluation are classified separately. Services outside these entries must be classified under their respective headings and taxed accordingly.

Donation under Part B of the Income-tax Act, 2025 means any voluntary contribution received by a registered non-profit organisation from any person.

Internal party discipline concerning a clash between an elected representative and party workers is being addressed through an inquiry report, prior suspension of two workers, and efforts to secure an amicable resolution. Consideration of a corruption case arising from an Enforcement Directorate request for registration of an FIR is subject to legal advice and a decision on lawful governmental action. The request concerns alleged evidence gathered through investigation and searches under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Place of supply for composite software development and integrated-circuit design services supplied to a recipient in non-taxable territory is the recipient's location where prototype hardware testing is ancillary. Testing and validation using hardware samples or test kits, when undertaken to improve quality or confirm that the developed software or design is error-free, forms part of the composite supply and cannot be artificially separated. The performance-based rule for services involving goods physically made available by the recipient does not separately govern such ancillary testing.

Personal hearing is required before an adverse GST determination is made. Where the Revenue cannot establish that the assessee received an opportunity to be heard, the resulting order breaches the principles of natural justice and is unsustainable. The assessee must receive a fresh determination after being afforded a personal hearing.

Personal hearing before an adverse GST order is required to satisfy principles of natural justice. Where the State cannot establish that an opportunity of hearing was granted, a challenge based on procedural unfairness is sustainable. An adverse GST order issued without such hearing is liable to be quashed, while the Department may pass a fresh order only after providing a proper opportunity of hearing.

Interest expenditure on borrowings used for business purposes is deductible where industrial land serves as a storage yard for trading inventory. Transport records established business use of the land for storing bulky iron and steel goods, for which open storage was commercially necessary. Capital and interest-free loans exceeding the land investment supported the presumption that the acquisition was funded from interest-free sources. In the absence of defects in the supporting records or adverse verification, disallowance of interest expenditure was unsustainable and was deleted.

Personnel eligibility for Fund Management Entities is revised through differentiated experience requirements for Key Management Personnel, professionally qualified individuals and certified candidates, with a broader definition of eligible institutions. FMEs that fail to achieve the prescribed minimum corpus may extend a valid placement memorandum for successive six-month periods by filing an application and paying the applicable reduced fee. Open-ended schemes may invest in unlisted securities only after attaining the stipulated minimum corpus. Winding up is permitted in specified corpus-failure and no-investor circumstances, while custodian appointment requirements receive a transitional arrangement.

Third-party fund management services permit an authorised Fund Management Entity (FME) to launch and manage Restricted Schemes for eligible regulated third-party fund managers. The FME must maintain additional net worth, appoint scheme-specific Principal Officers, strengthen compliance, and remain liable despite contractual indemnities. It must assess and monitor third-party eligibility and capability, preserve fund segregation and operational independence, make specified investor disclosures, manage conflicts, provide grievance redressal, conduct periodic audits, and retain termination rights in investor interests or on regulatory direction. Schemes managed under the arrangement are treated as schemes of the FME.

Job work under heading 9988 covers treatment or processing of goods belonging to another registered person and falls within item (id). Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others under item (iv) exclude such job work and apply where the inputs belong to persons other than registered persons under the DGST Act. The entries operate in distinct fields.

Money-laundering investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act concerns alleged diversion of bank-loan funds through fake or forged project-completion reports. The allegations include sale of five mortgaged properties at grossly undervalued consideration, with some buyers suspected to be benamis or proxies. These sales were allegedly intended to alienate assets and prevent their attachment under anti-money-laundering law.

Banking services at public sector banks were disrupted by a nationwide strike seeking a five-day workweek and resolution of wage-related demands. Branch operations affecting cash deposits, withdrawals, cheque clearance and administrative work were impacted, while digital banking channels remained functional. The central demand is declaration of all Saturdays as bank holidays, with other pending issues concerning pension updation, uniform dearness allowance for pensioners, and an option for National Pension System employees to move to the Old Pension Scheme.