Mandatory pre-deposit under Section 35F of the Central Excise Act requires the stipulated duty or penalty amount before an appeal can be entertained. Deposits made through GST DRC-03 must be considered consistently where an earlier deposit through that mode has already been accepted. A subsequent deposit through the same mode cannot be disregarded without a valid basis. On considering both deposits and the remaining prescribed balance deposited before the Tribunal, the mandatory pre-deposit requirement stood satisfied.

Section 35(1) of the Central Excise Act confines the Commissioner (Appeals)' power to condone delay to the prescribed appeal period plus a further 30 days on sufficient cause. Following COVID-period exclusion, limitation commenced on 1 March 2022; the ordinary 60-day period ended on 29 April 2022 and the maximum condonable period ended on 28 May 2022. An appeal filed thereafter could not be entertained, particularly where no condonation application was made, because the appellate authority has no statutory power to extend limitation beyond that outer limit.

Coordinate-bench precedent governed proceedings that stood on the same footing as earlier similarly situated matters. The impugned appellate order and order-in-original required the same treatment prescribed by that precedent, resulting in their quashing in favour of the assessee. The legal focus is the consistent application of a binding coordinate-bench ruling where the relevant controversy is directly covered and no material distinction is identified.

Social Welfare Surcharge on duty credit scrips and MEIS exemptions raised the issue whether the surcharge is chargeable as a percentage of duties levied and collected, including the distinction between levy and collection under Article 265. The Special Leave Petition was disposed of because the tax effect fell below the prescribed threshold. The question of law on surcharge chargeability and the authority to impose tax remains open.

Section 80P(2)(a)(iii) permits deduction for paddy procurement commission where a co-operative society coordinates procurement, logistics and payment of proceeds for agricultural produce grown by its members. Routing the commission through a State agency or tax deduction at source does not alter the activity's character as member-produce marketing, absent material showing procurement from non-members. Section 80P(2)(d) also covers interest on deposits with a district central co-operative bank registered as a co-operative society. Section 80P(4) limits the co-operative bank's own deduction but does not prevent a depositor co-operative society from claiming deduction on such interest.

Section 69A applies only where the source of money is not satisfactorily explained. Cash books, bank records, financial statements and an audit report supporting cash generated from edible-oil trading establish that an entire cash deposit cannot automatically be assessed as unexplained money. Where documentary inconsistencies remain, assessment may be confined to the profit element embedded in the deposit; a 10% estimation was treated as reasonable. Section 250(6) requires an appellate order to state the points for determination, decisions and reasons, rather than dispose of the matter summarily. The balance cash-deposit addition was deleted and the estimated profit was taxable at normal rates.

Rebate under section 87A is available against income taxable at the special rates specified under sections 111A and 11B. The position follows a coordinate-bench ruling supporting the rebate's availability where no legal or factual distinction warrants a different treatment. Eligible taxpayers may therefore claim the section 87A rebate in respect of the specified special-rate income.

Documented share-sale transactions supported by contract notes, banking records, broker ledgers, demat evidence and capital-gain workings cannot be treated as unexplained money merely on allegations of a bogus penny-stock arrangement. Acquisition through a registered broker, holding for over twelve months, sale through a recognised stock exchange, and payment of securities transaction tax supported genuineness. Investigation information alone, without evidence of cash payments, unexplained deposits, links to entry operators or material disproving the transaction trail, was insufficient to sustain an addition under Section 69A. The addition of sale consideration was therefore deleted.

Limitation governed the challenge to an order made beyond the prescribed period. The show-cause notice raised only one issue and did not raise the additional issues subsequently involved. Liberty was retained to challenge the appealable order giving effect to earlier orders on all available grounds, with all contentions left open. The scope of any further challenge therefore includes limitation and issues not contained in the show-cause notice.

Pending rectification application must be decided by the concerned authority within eight weeks of receiving the order and a photocopy of the application. The direction requires time-bound disposal without expressing any view on the application's merits. The prescribed period is intended to ensure that the rectification request receives a decision while leaving the substantive issues for determination by the competent authority.

Anticipatory bail in an alleged wrongful input tax credit matter was refused because the petitioner's position was not comparable to that of a co-accused who had obtained bail. The co-accused's circumstances were distinguishable, as proceedings against that person involved a quashed case and challenged assessment orders. The application for anticipatory bail was therefore rejected.

Central bank digital currency development was urged to be advanced through wholesale and retail pilots, with stronger digital rupee capabilities supporting tokenisation. A tokenised corporate bond pilot showed that the digital rupee can enable simultaneous transfer of asset and payment legs, permitting settlement on the payment date. Tokenisation may reduce intermediaries and accelerate transfers, but requires systemic-risk and cybersecurity safeguards because errors, fraud and market shocks may spread faster. AI can improve fraud detection while also enabling sophisticated automated cyberattacks.

The Secretary, ITE&C, Government of Andhra Pradesh is specified under section 258(1)(b) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 for receiving information regarding income-tax payers. The authorised information sharing is limited to identifying eligible beneficiaries under welfare schemes implemented by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

Existing officers must continue handling all registration, refund, scrutiny, audit, enforcement, adjudication, appeal and related tasks allocated to them before the jurisdictional order of 17 August 2026. This temporary direction applies despite changes to an officer's office nomenclature or territorial jurisdiction, until the Boweb Portal is updated to reflect amended jurisdiction mappings. It is issued to ensure uniform implementation of the Rajasthan GST framework and remove administrative ambiguity arising from the creation of new offices and reassignment of jurisdictions.

Territorial jurisdiction under the Rajasthan Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 is assigned to corresponding levels of proper officers, aligning GST jurisdiction with territorial assignments made under the Rajasthan VAT Rules, 2025 and specified provisions of the Rajasthan VAT Act, 2003. The order supersedes the earlier territorial-jurisdiction notification issued in 2023 and takes effect from 15 August 2026.

Jurisdiction under the RGST Act is determined on the date a statutory power is exercised. Actions validly undertaken by the officer having jurisdiction before a taxable person migrates to another jurisdiction remain valid and are not retrospectively invalidated. After migration, the former jurisdictional officer cannot initiate or continue action and must refer any new matter to the current jurisdictional officer. The current officer must take over pending proceedings from their existing stage, implement earlier actions, pursue consequential proceedings, and represent or conduct related appellate proceedings as though the earlier action had been initiated by that officer.

Importers of plastic packaging, commodities packaged in plastic, plastic raw materials, and intermediate materials for manufacturing plastic packaging must register on the Common EPR Portal before conducting business. Registration applications are scrutinised by the CPCB or SPCB, and certificates are issued after verification of application details. Customs officers must verify EPR registration certificates when clearing relevant import consignments. Certificates displaying one-year validity must be treated as one-time registration certificates that do not require renewal under the amended Plastic Waste Management Rules, and accepted as valid proof of EPR registration for import clearance.

Commodity derivatives client position-limit rules now cap daily monetary penalties for open-interest breaches, with lower caps for breaches up to 2% of prescribed limits and higher caps for larger breaches. Members must reduce excess positions by the next trading day; exchanges may square off continuing excess positions, impose one-day square-off mode for repeated same-commodity breaches, and levy an additional penalty after repeated monthly violations, except where violations arise exclusively from position clubbing. Agricultural commodities qualify as broad commodities if non-sensitive and meeting the revised five-year deliverable-supply threshold. Client open-position limits remain linked to deliverable supply: 2% for broad, 1% for narrow, and 0.5% for sensitive commodities, subject to transitional treatment for newly reclassified broad commodities.

Bank employees and officers supported a nationwide strike seeking implementation of a five-day banking system following delay in acting on an agreement between banking unions and the Indian Banks' Association. The proposed arrangement contemplated Saturday holidays with increased daily working hours to preserve customer-facing banking hours. Union representatives also objected to a unilateral and discriminatory Performance Linked Incentive scheme and sought bilateral discussions to resolve pending workweek, incentive, and other banking-sector issues.

Credit Line on UPI (CLOU) enables banks to offer pre-approved, risk-graded credit facilities directly through a customer's UPI ID for merchant transactions. The platform consolidates customer eligibility assessment, credit-line creation, digital consent and activation, transaction processing, risk controls, billing, payments and collections. PhiAMS supports the credit lifecycle from origination and product configuration to limit management, authorisation, billing, collections, risk management and customer servicing.