IBC appellate review was sought against an NCLAT order. No good ground to interfere was found, so the civil appeal was dismissed and pending applications were disposed of. No substantive insolvency issue, statutory interpretation, or legal reasoning accompanies the refusal to interfere; the operative disposition is confined to dismissal of the challenge itself.

Section 34(2)'s one-year limitation for completing objection proceedings raises the question whether an uncompleted objection proceeding prevents enforcement of an assessment demand and requires refund of sums deposited by the dealer. The High Court issued notice and listed the matter for further hearing, without a recorded determination on enforceability of the demand or entitlement to refund.

Interest on delayed service-tax payment is ancillary to the principal tax liability rather than an independent levy. As no separate limitation is prescribed for interest, a demand must be raised within a reasonable period using the limitation framework for the principal demand under Section 73. Extended limitation requires allegations of fraud, collusion, wilful misstatement or suppression. Regular ST-3 filing and absence of such allegations confined the demand to the normal thirty-month period; the June 2020 notice for June 2017 was consequently time-barred and unsustainable.

Export duty liability was considered in relation to whether the declared FOB value should be treated as a cum-duty price and the consequent redetermination of duty. The appellant did not advance further arguments because the same issue had already been addressed in its own earlier appeal. The export-duty challenge was therefore dismissed.

FOB value of exported iron ore is the transaction value under the Export Valuation Rules, 2007, being the price actually paid or payable. It cannot be treated as a cum-duty price or reduced by the export-duty component when determining assessable value. Export duty must therefore be computed on the FOB transaction value without a notional cum-duty deduction, resolving the valuation issue against the assessee.

Section 69A treatment of loan receipts as unexplained money was unsustainable where the lender's PAN, confirmation, banking records of fund transfers, and GST records established identity, transaction genuineness, and creditworthiness. These materials demonstrated that the loan was received through banking channels and that the lender had the capacity to advance funds. The unexplained-money addition was consequently deleted because the available evidence did not support its retention.

Section 10(23C)(iiiad) exemption for an educational institution was not conditional, for assessment year 2017-18, on filing a timely return. Section 139(4C)(e) imposed a return-filing obligation but did not deny the exemption, and a belated return filed in response to a section 142(1) notice remained valid; the filing-linked restriction applied only from 1 April 2023. Cash deposited in specified bank notes during demonetisation was not unexplained money under section 69A where student-fee collections were supported by relevant fee receipts and no contrary material existed. The business-income and unexplained-money additions were deleted.

Section 271C of the Income-tax Act applies to failure to deduct tax at source and cannot, under strict construction of penal provisions, be extended to failure or delay in depositing tax already deducted into the Central Government account. Default in remitting deducted tax attracts separate statutory consequences, including interest under Section 201(1A) and prosecution under Section 276B. Penalty under Section 271C is therefore not leviable solely for non-deposit or belated deposit of tax already deducted at source, and the penalty was directed to be deleted.

Cash payments to group concerns against purchases recorded in a running account or against debit balances arising from sales do not constitute repayment of a loan or deposit for Section 269T purposes. A payment that did repay a loan through a running business account nevertheless fell outside the pre-amendment provision, which applied only to deposits; loans became covered from 1 June 2002. Section 269T was therefore not contravened, and penalty under Section 271E was not sustainable.

Employees' provident fund contributions for April and May 2020, deposited after the ordinary due dates during the COVID-19 lockdown, were treated as deductible under section 36(1)(va). The lockdown-related delay was accepted because the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation waived penal charges for that period, the amounts were deposited immediately after restrictions were relaxed, employees' funds were not retained for a prolonged period, and later deposits were timely. The resulting addition was deleted.

Transfer-pricing analysis of technical know-how royalty under the Comparable Uncontrolled Price Method must assess licence comparability by the use of know-how, rather than product identity. Inclusion of non-exclusive automotive and transportation licences placed a 5% royalty within the arm's-length range, eliminating the royalty adjustment. Where receivables arise from a software-services segment and working-capital adjustment already captures delayed collection, no separate imputed-interest adjustment is sustainable, particularly where no interest is charged to unrelated customers. Interest for delayed filing under Section 234A applies on assessed income, Section 234B interest is consequential, and Section 234C interest is limited to returned income.

Section 144 permits best-judgment assessment when a tax return, books, or material needed to determine taxable income are not produced. Where prior profitability lacks a consistent pattern and contemporaneous support for a lower estimate, non-compliance despite substantial business turnover can justify estimating business income at a net-profit rate applied to net bank deposits. Estimation at 0.5% of net bank deposits was treated as fair and reasonable.

Section 68 requires a taxpayer to establish the creditor's identity and creditworthiness and the genuineness of a credit transaction. Where identity is undisputed and bank records, capital-account entries and banking-channel transfers substantiate loans, the credits may not be treated as unexplained. Credits received in earlier years cannot be assessed as unexplained cash credits in a later relevant year. Salary expenditure for necessary part-time assistance may qualify as business expenditure where the payments are modest and genuine; absence of employee confirmation alone does not justify disallowance without material disputing business need or genuineness.

Loans supported by lender affidavits, confirmations, bank statements and source-of-funds records satisfied the requirements of identity, transaction genuineness and lender creditworthiness for Section 68 purposes. With no specific adverse findings in the remand report on these evidentiary elements, the short interval before loan repayment did not by itself discredit the transactions. The addition as unexplained cash credits was therefore deleted.

Cash deposits made during demonetisation and recorded as cash sales are not unexplained money where books of account, day-to-day stock records, cash book, sales ledger and accepted VAT returns trace the deposits to recorded sales. Section 69A requires a satisfactory explanation of the nature and source of money; where those records and explanations remain unrejected and free of identified infirmity, the evidentiary burden is discharged. Suspicion from unusual sales, specified bank notes, or a probability-based assessment cannot displace that documented explanation.

Reassessment under sections 147, 148 and 151 requires the Assessing Officer to obtain and receive the competent authority's approval before issuing notice. Approval recorded internally on the same date, but communicated only after notice issuance, does not validly authorise the notice. Communication of approval to the issuing officer is therefore a necessary precondition for reassessment. A notice issued before such communication is invalid, rendering the consequential reopening and assessment unsustainable.

Transfer-pricing adjustment of AMP expenditure requires first identifying an international transaction; unilateral expenditure without a contractual arrangement or associated-enterprise benefit required fresh factual verification. Royalty paid under licensing arrangements could not be restricted ad hoc or valued at nil where accepted in earlier years without material change, so the adjustment was deleted. IT-support, technical/R&D services and chargebacks required renewed functional and comparability analysis, including whether recoveries were cost-to-cost reimbursements or service consideration. Share acquisition, ordinarily a capital account transaction not yielding taxable income, required examination under Section 56(2)(viib). Employee-based allocation of residual corporate costs was to continue if profit-linked deductions remained available. Book-profit treatment of tax-refund interest and treaty relief on dividends required fresh consideration after hearing the taxpayer.

Reassessment for Assessment Year 2015-16 is governed by the limitation period for notices issued under section 148 read with section 149(1)(b). The notice issued on 20 July 2022 fell outside the permissible period. As a result, the reassessment proceedings and the related penalty and recovery proceedings, being founded solely on that notice, lacked an independent legal basis and were invalid.

Cash sales disclosed during demonetisation were accepted where sale invoices, books of account, stock registers, and VAT returns substantiated the transactions. In the absence of adverse material discrediting the explanation, concurrent factual findings accepting those sales could not be disturbed merely on suspicion. Interference in an income-tax appeal was therefore unwarranted because the findings rested on documentary evidence and no contrary material was identified.

Failure to serve notices of hearing by email or within time by Speed Post denied the petitioners an effective opportunity to be heard. The original orders were quashed for that procedural defect. Fresh proceedings may commence from the show-cause notice stage, provided an opportunity of hearing is afforded; the merits remain open for determination.