Effective opportunity of personal hearing in GST adjudication requires that the hearing be scheduled after expiry of the deadline for replying to the show-cause notice. Scheduling it earlier makes the hearing illusory because the taxpayer cannot first submit the permitted response, thereby breaching principles of natural justice. Adjudication and appellate orders passed in these circumstances were quashed, with fresh proceedings to recommence from the show-cause notice stage after allowing a reply and then fixing a personal hearing.

Statutory stay of the balance GST demand applies once the prescribed cumulative appellate pre-deposits are paid under the GST enactment. The High Court did not determine whether the required deposits had actually been made or whether recovery from the Electronic Cash Ledger exceeded those deposits. It directed independent consideration of the taxpayer's representation after a personal hearing and required a reasoned and speaking order within the stipulated period. Any recovery found to exceed the cumulative statutory pre-deposits must be refunded or recredited. The underlying merits of the GST demand remain open.

Section 75(7) of the GST law prohibits an adjudicating authority from confirming a tax demand or penalty exceeding the amounts proposed in the show cause notice. This statutory restriction is mandatory, and any adjudication order exceeding the proposed demand is without jurisdiction. The impugned order was set aside, with the matter remitted for fresh adjudication after providing an opportunity of hearing.

Fresh GST adjudication was required where the taxpayer asserted that tax liability had already been discharged and that the final demand components overlapped with an assessment by the jurisdictional officer. The assessment was quashed and remitted for a fresh merits decision after notice, conditional on deposit of interest and penalty imposed in the earlier jurisdictional assessment. Failure to make that deposit permitted recovery in accordance with law.

Expiry of an e-way bill, without more, does not justify detention, integrated tax, or penalty under section 129 where the consignment is accompanied by tax invoices and supporting documents, physical verification reveals no discrepancy, and no tax evasion is found. Board instructions distinguish minor procedural lapses from substantive breaches. The explanation for failure to extend e-way bill validity requires consideration, and intention to evade tax remains relevant. On these facts, invoking section 129 solely for expired e-way bills was unjustified, and the resulting tax and penalty demand was set aside.

Employee recoveries for subsidised canteen meals provided under statutory obligations at factories, R&D facilities and corporate offices are treated as employer-employee contractual perquisites rather than supplies under section 7 of the CGST Act; GST is therefore not payable on those recoveries. Input tax credit on GST charged by the canteen provider is available where the facility is legally mandatory, because the proviso to section 17(5)(b) applies across that clause. Credit remains restricted to the employer-borne canteen cost, while the proportion attributable to employee meal recoveries is disallowed.

Clean-slate sale of a corporate debtor as a going concern extinguishes pre-existing liabilities and investigations, preventing reassessment from being based on an alleged earlier interest liability. Reopening cannot rest on conjecture that unpaid interest was deducted or that a liability ceased where available accounts could verify the claim and the section 148A order itself records no cessation. An order under section 148A must remain within the show-cause notice; adding an unrelated bogus-purchase allegation without notice or hearing breaches natural justice and indicates non-application of mind. On these grounds, the reassessment notice and section 148A order were quashed.

Penalty under Explanation 7 to section 271(1)(c) was not sustainable on a transfer pricing adjustment where the taxpayer used the prescribed TNMM method, disclosed its filters, comparables and operating-margin computation, and acted in good faith with due diligence. Differences over the profit level indicator and treatment of operating items were debatable interpretational issues, not evidence that the arm's length price had been computed outside the statutory framework. Mere differences of opinion on such issues do not attract penalty. The High Court sustained deletion of the penalty and dismissed the Revenue's appeal for want of a substantial question of law.

Timely furnishing of Form No. 10B within an extended return-filing deadline satisfies the audit-report requirement for charitable-trust exemption. Although filing the audit report is a substantive requirement, the prescribed timing and mode of submission are procedural where the report is available before assessment. Rejection of a condonation application does not bar the exemption because condonation is an additional remedy. Form No. 10B for the relevant assessment year must therefore be accepted and the claimed exemption granted.

Interest arising from State Government funds advanced to an assessee is not taxable in the assessee's hands where the interest belongs to the State Government, including where the same issue has been determined for an earlier assessment year. Conversely, a signature bonus received on transferring developed power projects constitutes a revenue receipt when developing and transferring such projects forms part of the taxpayer's ordinary business and involves expenditure on surveys, testing and approvals. The distinction turns on beneficial ownership of the interest and the receipt's direct connection with regular business operations.

Reassessment based on additions identical to those made in an original search assessment cannot proceed while tax appeals challenging that assessment remain pending, where the original appellate authority considered the additions on merits as well as technical grounds. The High Court found that parallel reassessment would directly affect the pending appeals. Precedent permitting reassessment after an assessment was annulled solely on a technical ground did not apply. The reopening notice and consequential reassessment orders were quashed; the merits of the additions remain to be decided in the pending tax appeals.

SEZ-unit profit deduction extends to a voluntary transfer-pricing adjustment disclosed in the return; a pending special leave petition does not displace prevailing Tribunal and jurisdictional High Court authority without a contrary Supreme Court ruling. Ad hoc expenditure disallowance linked to exempt mutual-fund dividend income is addressed through prior assessee-specific rulings. Year-end foreign-exchange loss recognised at the balance-sheet date is treated as allowable business expenditure. In ITeS benchmarking, service providers may be excluded for functional dissimilarity, unavailable segmental information, or failure of the employee-cost filter; medical transcription, billing and coding activities are functionally distinct from the tested ITeS services.

Penalty proceedings for undisclosed income found during a search require a notice under section 274 that identifies the precise charge under section 271AAB, including the applicable statutory clause and corresponding penalty rate. This specificity is necessary to provide a meaningful opportunity of hearing. A notice that merely refers generally to undisclosed income and proposed penalty under section 271AAB, without identifying the relevant conditions, is vague and invalid. Defective initiation notices invalidate consequential penalty proceedings; the penalty is deleted, leaving the substantive merits of the levy unexamined.

Revisionary jurisdiction for inadequate inquiry into TDS on commission and brokerage expenditure arises where the Assessing Officer merely calls for TDS details without examining a material mismatch between financial-statement expenditure and TDS reporting. A substantial increase in expenditure and a claim that amounts retained by franchisees constituted discounts rather than commission require specific examination of contractual arrangements, accounting treatment and TDS liability. Failure to conduct that inquiry may render an assessment erroneous and prejudicial to Revenue interests, rather than reflecting a prohibited change of opinion. The revisionary order was sustained, leaving the expenditure's nature and tax consequences for fresh assessment after giving the assessee an opportunity to respond.

Ad hoc disallowance of livestock purchases was unjustified where the assessing officer failed to identify missing documents or defects in the banking records, supplier confirmations and purchase details, and made no meaningful inquiry beyond issuing supplier notices. Computer-generated invoices lacking GST particulars did not establish bogus purchases because live bovine animals were GST-exempt and suppliers were not required to register. Thumb impressions on cash-purchase vouchers, without adverse material, likewise did not disprove genuineness. The disallowance treated as business income was deleted.

Section 69A was considered in relation to income from other sources that had been included in taxable income and on which advance tax, tax deducted at source and self-assessment tax had been paid, but which was omitted from the corresponding return schedule. The material also addresses appeal limitation where High Court directions permitted filing without reference to limitation and required exclusion of the period of pendency.

Section 80-IA(4) deduction for infrastructure development may be available to an EPC enterprise executing Government water, sewage and industrial-effluent projects where it substantively develops eligible infrastructure and satisfies statutory conditions. A contractual description as a works contractor does not, by itself, bar eligibility. Consistency with an earlier decision on substantially similar facts applies where no material factual or legal change, or contrary higher-forum ruling, is shown. On these principles, the deduction was sustained and the Revenue's challenge failed.

Reassessment limitation excludes the period allowed for a response to a notice under section 148A(b) when calculating the three-year period under section 149(1). Once that exclusion applies, approval by the PCIT satisfies the specified-authority requirement under section 151(i), preserving the notice's validity. A political-party donation deduction under section 80GGC requires a genuine contribution; payment through banking channels and a receipt alone do not prove genuineness. Investigation material, statements, bank-trail analysis and evidence of layered funds may, under the test of human probabilities, establish an accommodation entry. Failure to rebut such material renders the deduction ineligible.

Cash gifts from close relatives cannot be treated as unexplained credits where gift deeds, confirmations, tax returns, financial statements and responses to statutory notices establish donor identity, transaction genuineness and basic creditworthiness. The assessee's initial burden is then discharged, and any enquiry into donors' actual funding sources belongs in their own assessments unless a statute provides otherwise. Earlier adverse donor assessments or doubts about financial capacity cannot alone establish that gifted funds were the assessee's own money. On these principles, the cash-gift addition and consequential special-rate tax treatment were deleted.

Documented gift funding and traceable bank transfers can explain a spouse's contribution to an immovable-property purchase. Donor confirmation identifying fixed-deposit liquidation, together with matching same-date debit and credit entries, supported acceptance of the stated source. Regular mutual-fund SIPs for a minor child were likewise treated as explained where bank debits, modest periodic investments, and clearing credits supported the claim of salary savings. Consequently, the additions for unexplained property and mutual-fund investments were deleted; the reopening issue remained academic and computation required verification under law.