Assessment jurisdiction depends on a valid statutory transfer where scrutiny proceedings move between Assessing Officers. An administrative proforma, without a transfer order under section 127, does not confer jurisdiction on the successor officer, even where that officer has pecuniary jurisdiction. Scrutiny notice validity also depends on service within six months from the end of the financial year in which the return is furnished under section 143(2). A notice issued after that period cannot be treated as valid merely because proceedings were administratively transferred. These requirements determine whether assessment proceedings can be sustained.

Market fee and cess payable under a State enactment are statutory levies, not consideration for contractual work, and therefore do not attract tax deduction at source under the provision governing contractual payments. Government-prescribed procurement payments to societies, supported by sanctioned rates, reimbursement arrangements, control accounts and separately identifiable remuneration, constitute pass-through disbursements rather than contractor or subcontractor expenditure. The related disallowances for non-deduction of tax were deleted. Remission or cessation of a trading liability requires proof of a benefit obtained through an actual waiver, write-back, remission or extinguishment during the relevant year. Outstanding balances, wit.....

Dispute Resolution Panel directions bind the Assessing Officer when passing the final assessment order. Retaining a transfer-pricing adjustment despite directed relief is not a clerical error capable of rectification where the Transfer Pricing Officer and Assessing Officer consciously adopted the adjustment contrary to those directions; the final assessment order is consequently bad in law. Under the Other Method, arm's length pricing of intra-group technical and shared services requires comparable uncontrolled transactions or a stated basis for the valuation. The Transfer Pricing Officer cannot test commercial benefit and cannot determine a nil arm's length price on an ad hoc basis where evidence of service receipt and cost allocation remains undiscredited. The consequential transfer-pricing addition is deleted.

Electronic uploading of Dispute Resolution Panel directions on the ITBA portal constitutes valid and sufficient service for calculating the deadline for a final assessment under section 144C(13). Where directions were uploaded in October 2025, the final assessment had to be completed by the end of November 2025. Completion in December 2025 exceeded the prescribed limitation period, rendering the final assessment beyond jurisdiction and time-barred. Other grounds challenging the assessment remain open because limitation disposed of the matter.

Under TNMM, a Basmati rice trader that only procures and exports rice to its associated enterprise should be benchmarked against entities with comparable trading functions, assets and risks. Diversified commodity trading and rice milling, processing or manufacturing companies were treated as functionally dissimilar and excluded; milling and processing, rather than non-Basmati dealings or profitability alone, determined exclusion. Segmental trading results of a diversified company required reconsideration where trading represented its predominant revenue. Cash discounts reducing rice purchase cost and export incentives from licence sales were treated as operating income, since their exclusion would distort the operating-profit comparison. The transfer-pricing adjustment required recomputation on these bases.

Captive contract software-development services are benchmarked against companies performing comparable software-development functions, assets and risks; product-development businesses, complex digital-product providers and companies lacking relevant segmental information are unsuitable. Companies earning software-development service revenue may remain comparable where no material functional difference is established, while entities exceeding the applicable related-party transaction filter must be excluded. Where delayed trade receivables arise solely from the service transaction benchmarked under TNMM, they require combined benchmarking. Working-capital adjustment for material differences subsumes the receivables effect, so separate notiona.....

Transfer-pricing benchmarking requires exclusion of comparables with financially illogical gross-profit-to-sales ratios of 100 per cent or more, applying the principle that super-profit-making companies should not be retained for comparability analysis. The inclusion of four such entities was set aside and remitted to the TPO for fresh consideration after hearing the assessee. A comparable could not be rejected for non-availability of its annual report where that report had been furnished to the TPO; its inclusion in the benchmarking exercise was directed. The TPO's positive gross-profit-margin computation for another comparable was also found erroneous because the record showed a negative margin, requiring fresh determination.

Penalty for misreporting under section 270A requires the revenue to identify and establish a statutory instance of misreporting. Transfer-pricing adjustments arising solely from rejection of the taxpayer's benchmarking methodology, economic or comparability analysis, and adoption of a different most appropriate method do not by themselves establish misreporting. Reporting international transactions in Form 3CEB and maintaining prescribed transfer-pricing documentation support the position that the transactions were disclosed. Where no failure to report an international transaction or other statutory misreporting circumstance is identified, the adjustment falls within the exclusion for eligible transfer-pricing adjustments and cannot attract misreporting penalty.

Section 80G approval turns on an institution's objects, beneficiaries and activities considered as a whole, rather than isolated spiritual or philosophical clauses. Disseminating Bhagavad Gita teachings alongside relief of poverty, medical relief, public welfare, libraries and reading rooms does not make a society wholly or substantially religious where membership and services are open to all communities. Religious-expenditure entries in Form 10AB that duplicated total audited expenditure, despite a declaration of no religious spending, were treated as an inadvertent data-entry error rather than a substantive admission. In any event, incidental religious expenditure below the five per cent statutory ceiling does not defeat eligibility. The rejection was set aside and approval was directed to be granted.

Penalty proceedings under section 271D for accepting cash loans contrary to section 269SS require a regular assessment or reassessment and the Assessing Officer's recorded satisfaction of the alleged contravention. Where neither scrutiny assessment nor reassessment had commenced and no satisfaction was recorded, the Tribunal quashed the proceedings. The approach follows High Court precedent that, without a regular assessment, recourse to comparable penalty proceedings under section 271E is unjustified. Both appeals were allowed.

TDS-default proceedings concerning commission paid to travel agents require verification of the actual commission amount and the tax-deduction obligation on payments to foreign agents without a permanent establishment in India. Although the appellate authority treated the objections as directed at the original TDS-default order rather than the rectification order, the rectification record included the assessee's submission that tax had already been deducted on part of the commission. The Tribunal restored the matter to the Assessing Officer for fresh verification, after a final opportunity for the assessee to substantiate its commission claim, and for decision in accordance with law.

Functional comparability governs selection of software development support service comparables. Entities undertaking enterprise transformation, software-product or diversified activities, onsite services, product development or research and development, without reliable segmental information, do not meet the benchmark for routine software development support services and are excluded. The functional profiles of two proposed comparables require fresh examination. Inclusion of another comparable depends on verification of its related-party transaction computation under the applicable filter. Weighted-average operating margins and working-capital adjustments for software development and sales and marketing support services require verification.....

Appeals against revision orders must identify a grievance with the revision itself. Grounds confined to a consequential assessment do not challenge the revision order. Where every ground targets only the consequential assessment, no maintainable challenge to the revision exists, and dismissal follows independently of any issue concerning delay in filing the appeal. This requirement ensures that appellate grounds correspond to the order purportedly under challenge rather than to a separate consequential assessment.

Related-party customs valuation requires objectively founded reasonable doubt before rejecting the declared transaction value. Non-disclosure of an exporter's Suggested List Price, without evidence that the discount was abnormal, artificial or relationship-driven, does not justify rejection where comparable export-country discounts and commercial normality are established. Any reassessment must follow the prescribed valuation methods sequentially; the residual method cannot use the exporter's domestic-market price. Royalty, technical assistance and know-how fees are includible only when they relate to imported goods and are payable as a condition of sale. Payments for Indian manufacturing technology, and discontinued notional management fees, are therefore excluded absent evidence of import-price adjustment.

Bulk drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) may qualify as "All Drugs and medicines" for concessional IGST treatment where their character, intended use and statutory compliance bring them within the inclusive definition of "drug" under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. Classification under Customs Tariff Chapters 28 or 29 does not preclude coverage by the description-based drugs and medicines entry, which prevails over general entries for inorganic and organic chemicals. Imports for testing, clinical research, bioavailability or bioequivalence studies retain their pharmaceutical character. The concessional rate applies only if the particular bulk drug or API is not within the specified nil-rate exclusion.

Bulk drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients qualify as "all drugs and medicines" for the specified IGST rate entry because the inclusive statutory definition of "drug" covers substances used as drug components. Their use in manufacture, testing, clinical trials, bioavailability studies or bioequivalence studies does not change their character as drugs. The description-based entry covers APIs even where classified under chemical chapters, and prevails over general chapter-based entries for organic and inorganic chemicals. Imports of bulk drugs or APIs therefore attract IGST at 5% under the relevant rate entry, unless they fall within the separate nil-rated entry.

Companies in liquidation must file annual or final accounts even where audited half-yearly accounts for both halves of the financial year have been filed. Half-yearly accounts must be merged into annual accounts because annual reporting is necessary to accurately disclose the companies' financial position. Exemption from filing annual or final accounts for the relevant financial year was therefore refused. The half-yearly accounts were accepted on record, and auditors' fees could be paid from available company funds or, subject to reimbursement, from the Estate and Establishment Fund.

Clean-hands requirements in PIL jurisdiction require complete disclosure of earlier similar proceedings to prevent parallel litigation and conflicting adjudication. Failure to disclose a pending writ petition seeking substantially overlapping relief concerning NSE shareholding and beneficial ownership was treated as suppression of material facts, forum shopping and abuse of process. The High Court dismissed the PIL at the threshold without examining divestment allegations and imposed exemplary costs, as the conduct disentitled the petitioner to equitable and extraordinary relief irrespective of the underlying merits.

Forfeiture of a successful bidder's part payment before expiry of an expressly extended period for paying the auction balance is arbitrary. A payment communication allowing payment beyond the original deadline with interest for up to 60 days made forfeiture operative only upon default continuing after that period. Discretion under the payment schedule to extend the timeline and the regulatory framework for delayed payment with interest did not permit earlier cancellation or forfeiture. Where the asset was subsequently sold and consideration realised, retention of the part payment was unjustified. The forfeiture was set aside to the extent of refunding the part payment without interest.

Provisional attachment of properties acquired from proceeds of crime may be sustained despite asserted prior sales, partial sales, or mortgages where recipients of funds from an accused entity cannot establish genuine business activity or an independent source for acquiring the properties. Properties traced to tainted funds through entities controlled by the accused remain subject to attachment. A person who has already sold a property has no subsisting interest to challenge its attachment; any purchaser may pursue an independent remedy. Mortgages do not by themselves require release of attached property, while any valid independent claim of a financial institution or other third party remains open.