Chhattisgarh GST amendments define online gaming, online money gaming, specified actionable claims, and virtual digital assets. Platform owners, operators, and managers arranging supplies of specified actionable claims are deemed suppliers liable for tax. Online money gaming supplied from outside India to persons in India is brought within compulsory registration. The amendments also impose a three-year limit for filing outward-supply details, returns, annual returns, and operator statements, subject to conditional governmental relaxation; revise input tax credit restrictions; and restructure tribunal, electronic-commerce penalty, offence, and compounding provisions.

The Foreign Exchange Management (Current Account Transactions) (Amendment) Rules, 2000 substitute the Schedule II entry concerning advertisement abroad by a State Government or its public sector undertakings. The substituted entry identifies the Ministry of Finance, Department of Economic Affairs, in relation to that current account transaction. The amendment takes effect upon publication.

Empanelment of specified Chartered Accountants, Chartered Accountant firms, Cost Accountants and Cost Accountant firms enables their selection for conducting special audits of GST-registered persons. Inclusion in the panel does not create any right to receive allocation of taxpayers for special audit. An empanelled professional may be removed if application information or particulars are subsequently found false or misrepresented. The panel remains valid for three years from its notification.

Empanelment of chartered accountants, chartered accountant firms, cost accountants and cost accountant firms for GST special audit is amended to rectify clerical and typographical errors in the names of listed professionals and firms. The corrections align the empanelment entries with the names furnished in the respective applications and are confined to correction of the recorded names of already empanelled applicants.

Interest on borrowed funds is deductible only to the extent the funds are used for the assessee's business. Interest attributable to funds deployed for acquiring shares through an intermediary qualifies for deduction. Funds retained by a sister concern without any return, enforceable arrangement, or stipulated period for acquiring shares are not treated as used for the assessee's business. Accordingly, interest attributable to the unutilised amount retained by the sister concern is not deductible, while interest linked to the share-acquisition funds remains allowable.

JCR upgrades India's foreign-currency and local-currency long-term issuer ratings to A- with a stable outlook, citing sustained economic growth, productivity-oriented policies and improved financial-system soundness. Fiscal constraints include elevated deficits, intergovernmental fiscal transfers, electoral-cycle sensitivity, and high combined government debt and interest burdens. Greater emphasis on infrastructure capital expenditure has improved the quality of fiscal spending. External resilience is supported by a contained current account deficit, services surplus and foreign-exchange reserves exceeding short-term external debt.

Appeal limitation was satisfied because the appeal was filed within the prescribed period after receipt of the intimation. Section 205 protects a deductee from direct recovery of tax actually deducted by a tenant from rental income. Failure by the deductor to deposit deducted tax is actionable against the deductor, while non-reflection in the tax credit statement does not extinguish the deductee's entitlement to corresponding TDS credit. Tax demand cannot be sustained to the extent it results from denying credit for tax actually deducted.

Construction of a complex, building or part thereof intended for sale is brought within the amended service description where the amount charged includes the value of land or an undivided share of land. Transactions are excluded where the entire consideration is received after issuance of the required completion certificate or after first occupation, whichever is earlier. The amendment is deemed effective from 20 October 2023.

Rural-branch status for the provision for bad and doubtful debts depends on the population of the relevant place under the latest published preceding census, not merely on inclusion within a larger urban area. RBI census-based branch classification supports the claim. Net investment depreciation is allowable where securities are measured under RBI guidelines and ICDS VIII, with only category-wise net depreciation claimed. Unclaimed stale demand-draft balances remain liabilities to drawees and do not become income while claims remain payable and balances are transferable to the prescribed RBI fund. Ex-gratia employee payments qualify as business expenditure. Rural bad-debt recoveries require verification, while the non-rural bad-debt claim requires fresh merits adjudication.

Banking tax computation allows net depreciation on restructured equity and preference shares where valuation follows RBI guidelines. Appellate enhancement cannot disallow depreciation on security receipts that was not examined in assessment, as it would introduce a new source of income. Bad-debt and qualifying technical write-offs on non-rural advances need not be adjusted against the rural-advance provision. Section 14A and Rule 8D do not produce further expenditure disallowance for banks' stock-in-trade securities. Stale draft balances and advance receipts remain liabilities rather than taxable income. Rural-branch provision deduction uses month-end aggregate average advances, while business ex-gratia payments are deductible.

Statutory penalties imposed for contraventions of the Banking Regulation Act are not deductible as business expenditure where the taxpayer does not establish that the levy is compensatory; absence of prima facie money-laundering evidence does not alter the statutory character of the penalty. The payment is therefore barred by Explanation 1 to section 37(1). The book-profit computation mechanism under section 115JB does not apply to a nationalised bank, following the statutory framework and the Finance Act 2012 amendment. Accordingly, the penalty disallowance stands, while the bank remains outside the minimum alternate tax regime.

Final assessment orders issued after Dispute Resolution Panel directions must be passed within one month from the end of the month in which those directions are received under Section 144C(13). Where the directions were issued in January 2022, digital authentication of the final order and demand notice only in July 2022 did not meet that time limit. As Section 144B(6) requires digital authentication for an assessment order to take effect, the delayed authentication rendered the final assessment order time-barred and invalid.

Deposits assessed as unexplained money required fresh adjudication because the assessee had not responded to assessment notices or supplied relevant details to the Assessing Officer or appellate authority. Adequate opportunity to explain the nature and source of the deposits, and to present defences, was considered necessary in the interest of justice. All issues concerning the deposits were restored to the Assessing Officer for reconsideration after providing an adequate hearing.

Unexplained-investment addition for land acquired in another person's name requires material establishing that the assessee funded the purchase. Registered sale deeds identified the named purchaser and recorded receipt of consideration from him, while his statements attributed the funds to plot-sale proceeds and past savings without linking the assessee. As the investment was also assessed substantively in the purchaser's and connected company's hands, no basis remained to sustain the same addition against the assessee. The addition was therefore deleted.

A specifically raised legal challenge to a penalty for alleged contravention of the cash-loan acceptance restriction cannot be treated as a general ground and left undecided by the first appellate authority. Where reassessment proceedings on the same information were dropped after the amount was treated as a loan for penalty purposes, the legal ground requires adjudication on its merits. The assessee must be given a reasonable opportunity to present supporting material on that ground and all other grounds. Fresh adjudication by the first appellate authority is required.

Registration applications under sections 12AB and 80G(5) were rejected for non-compliance without considering submissions uploaded before the e-filing window closed. Although the response to a later notice was delayed, the material was available on record when the rejection order was made. The applications required fresh examination on merits after considering the uploaded submissions and any further material required. The rejection under section 12AB and the consequential rejection under section 80G(5) were set aside for a fresh decision after reasonable opportunity to the assessee.

Interest income earned by a co-operative housing society on deposits with co-operative banks is treated as eligible for deduction under Section 80P(2)(d), which applies to interest or dividend income derived by a co-operative society from investments with another co-operative society. Co-operative banks in Maharashtra are recognised as co-operative societies for this purpose. Accordingly, where a co-operative housing society earns interest from deposits placed with such banks, that income qualifies for the Section 80P(2)(d) deduction.

Interest expenditure incurred from borrowed funds used for business purposes is deductible under profits and gains of business or profession where the claim is undisputed and unsupported by contrary material. A legitimate deduction claim may be considered at the appellate stage even if it was not made through a revised return. An unexplained-investment addition relating to agricultural land requires verification where civil disputes, instalment payments and subsequent payments may affect the assessee's explanation; the claim should be reconsidered after allowing further evidence.

Unsecured loan credits under Section 68 require the assessee to establish the creditor's identity, creditworthiness and the genuineness of the transaction on a prima facie basis, after which the burden shifts to the Revenue to disprove it. Loan approval and agreement records, RTGS receipt and repayment entries supported the transaction. Reliance on a lender representative's statement without allowing cross-examination, particularly where it was recorded at the assessee's premises, could not sustain an adverse inference. The loan credit was therefore not treated as unexplained and the addition was deleted.

Expenditure previously disallowed for non-payment of tax deducted at source becomes deductible in the previous year of payment under the proviso to Section 40(a)(ia), subject to verification of tax payment and supporting expense records. A disparity between the expenditure amount and tax paid does not alone justify rejecting the claim. The deduction requires fresh verification and adjudication. Set-off of brought-forward losses and unabsorbed depreciation, where not adjudicated in first appeal and denied in tax computation, requires de novo determination after a reasonable opportunity of hearing.