Taxability of interest on excess levy price retained in fixed deposits requires fresh determination from the settlement terms and their final effect, since receipt occurred after the relevant year and earlier-year facts differed. Deletion of the molasses storage fund addition remains sustainable where materially similar facts follow the earlier favourable position. Excise duty relating to closing stock is not disallowable where no corresponding expenditure was claimed: applying the same duty-inclusive basis to opening and closing stock produces no profit effect, and the duty liability may arise only when goods leave the factory or bonded warehouse.

Biometric-based Aadhaar authentication for GST registration is implemented through revised facilitation-centre mapping under sub-rule (4A) of rule 8 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017. Jurisdiction-name and jurisdiction-code columns are interchanged, and an additional column identifies the relevant SGST circle. Specified Khordha and Cuttack applicants are mapped to the respective biometric centres, CGST jurisdictions, SGST jurisdiction codes, and SGST circles. All remaining conditions continue unchanged.

Accepted Revenue Audit objection falls within the exception to the monetary-limit instruction in CBDT Circular No. 3/2018. Accordingly, a departmental appeal previously dismissed for low tax effect may be recalled and restored for hearing on merits where that exception applies. The earlier dismissal was recalled and the departmental appeal was restored for merits hearing, with no opposition to recall from the assessee.

Odisha applies four central GST clarifications mutatis mutandis under the OGST Act, 2017. They address input tax credit for electronic commerce operators where specified services are supplied through their platforms, input tax credit on Ex-Works goods delivered at the supplier's premises, place of supply of online services to unregistered recipients, and GST treatment of vouchers. The guidance is clarificatory and intended for uniform administration.

Section 2(f) of the Right to Information Act confines disclosure obligations to recorded material held by or accessible to a public authority. A Public Information Officer cannot be penalised for stating that a seniority list is unavailable unless material shows the record was accessible when the response was given. Requests for reasons why a post was unfilled or a person was not considered for promotion seek administrative justification, not existing information. A PIO need not create information or supply explanations; findings of false, incomplete, or misleading disclosure and consequential penalty are unsustainable in these circumstances.

GST adjudication and appellate proceedings require personal hearings in scrutiny and demand proceedings, reasoned show-cause notices, and speaking adjudication orders addressing taxpayers' issues. Return scrutiny for each financial year must be comprehensive and should avoid multiple orders unless tax evasion is involved. Input tax credit blocking requires timely enquiry and adjudication. Penalties following goods interception require speaking orders in FORM GST MOV-09, while appellate orders must address every ground raised in appeal.

Post-registration physical verification of GST registrants' places of business need not be conducted in every case following biometric-based Aadhaar authentication, applicant photographs, and verification of original registration documents. Verification should be undertaken where credible information or leads indicate revenue risk. Staff may be deployed for assessment, collection, non-filer management, return scrutiny, audit, adjudication, TDS monitoring, and arrear recovery, while surveys of unregistered persons may be kept in abeyance.

Cancellation of charitable registration requires proof that a trust's activities are not genuine or depart from its stated objects. Alleged collection of capitation fees, though potentially contrary to separate regulatory requirements, is insufficient where receipts are applied to infrastructure and educational institutions advancing charitable objects and there is no finding of non-charitable application. Alleged diversion also requires evidence of personal appropriation or benefit. Cash held at a registered office, personal admission payments, and refundable lease advances recorded for educational premises do not establish diversion without such proof.

Range and Circle Heads must assess the workload for registration, cancellation, including suo motu cancellation, and revocation functions in each Circle or Unit office. Depending on that workload, they must exclusively assign one or two proper officers in Circle offices to registration-related functions. Those officers must not receive return-scrutiny, audit, adjudication, or recovery work until they are divested of their exclusive registration assignment, and their registration-function assignment must rotate every six months.

GST enforcement officers must comply meticulously with statutory procedures. Issuing an order in GST MOV-09 after seven days from issuance of a show-cause notice in GST MOV-07 is contrary to section 129(3) of the OGST Act, 2017. Proper Officers must follow the prescribed timeline so that demands raised on important issues are not undermined by statutory anomaly.

Composite leave-and-licence receipts from residential flats held as stock-in-trade, coupled with electricity, lift, cleaning and maintenance services, are taxable as business income where the flats are commercially exploited through a leasing business. Classification turns on the true source of receipts, the taxpayer's intention as demonstrated by actual operations, and whether letting is a business activity rather than mere ownership-based rental income. Operating restrictions preventing sale or creation of third-party interests, together with composite service-based licensing, support assessment under Profits and Gains of Business or Profession rather than Income from House Property.

Odisha's Commissioner of State Tax rescinds Notification No. 4450/CT&GST dated 10 March 2023 under sub-rule (1) of Rule 108 and sub-rule (1) of Rule 26 of the Odisha Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017. The rescission withdraws the prior regulatory measure issued under those procedural provisions.

Acceptance of corresponding sales and declared trading profit prevents the entire value of allegedly bogus purchases from being treated as unexplained expenditure under Section 69C. Where purchase invoices, ledger accounts and payment records support the transactions and the goods are directly correlated with undisputed subsequent sales, non-production of suppliers identified as hawala dealers does not justify taxing the full purchase amount. Only the reasonable profit element embedded in the disputed purchases may be added. The addition was therefore restricted to 6% of the disputed purchases after adjustment for gross profit already declared.

Designated officers at mapped facilitation centres must conduct biometric Aadhaar authentication for GST registration applicants, photograph applicants, and verify original documents corresponding to uploaded registration-application documents. Supervisory officers oversee these functions. Territorial Range Heads may change officer deployment within their concerned ranges. The deployment applies from 7 January 2025.

Customs EDI systems require exporters and Customs Brokers to declare Certificate of Origin details at item level in Shipping Bills for exports to New Zealand under the India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. The prescribed declaration is mandatory for every item, while exports outside a preferential trade arrangement must use Info_CD NCPTI. A Shipping Bill cannot be filed without the required declaration. The declared Certificate of Origin number and date must match the Certificate of Origin issued by the designated issuing authority.

Customs EDI filing for exports to New Zealand requires item-level Certificate of Origin declarations in Shipping Bills for preferential tariff treatment under the India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. Every item must carry Info_Type "ORC", Info_Qfr "EPT", and Info_CD "FTANZD"; exports outside a preferential trade agreement must use Info_CD "NCPTI". Non-declaration prevents Shipping Bill filing. Certificate of Origin numbers and dates must exactly match those issued by the designated issuing authority.

Notification No. 12/97-Customs (N.T.) is amended to add Anekollu in Krishnagiri District, Tamil Nadu, to the listed Inland Container Depots. The newly inserted entry permits unloading of imported goods and loading of export goods, including any specified class of such goods, at that location. This extends notified customs handling facilities to Anekollu for import unloading and export loading operations.

Payments received by the International Rice Research Institute are excluded from the application of Chapter XIX of the Income-tax Act, 2025. The exclusion is subject to the conditions prescribed under the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947, read with the relevant Ministry of External Affairs notification. It takes effect from publication in the Official Gazette.

National Social Security Board is constituted for a three-year term under the Code on Social Security, 2020, with representation from workers, employers, unorganised workers, Parliament, Central ministries and departments, and State labour administrations. The Board is also assigned welfare functions for gig workers and platform workers. For those functions, its general membership is replaced by representatives of aggregators, app-based workers and trade unions, social-security institutions, labour-welfare experts, and State labour officials.

Anti-dumping duty on titanium dioxide originating in or exported from China PR is confined to specified end uses. Titanium dioxide used in food, pharmaceutical, skin-care, textile and fibre applications, and nano or ultrafine material below 100 nm, is excluded. Importers claiming exclusion must make an electronic Bill of Entry declaration and undertake to pay applicable anti-dumping duty and interest if goods are supplied for non-excluded uses. Diversion or use contrary to the declared end use triggers recovery of anti-dumping duty, consequential differential duty and interest, without limiting further action under customs law. The prior implementation circular is superseded.