Pre-14 May 2015 valuation of Customs House Agent services excluded genuine reimbursements of third-party expenses incurred on clients' behalf, where those recoveries were not consideration for the taxable service. Section 67 limited taxable value to the gross amount charged for the service, and Rule 5(1) could not expand that statutory base by adding expenditure incurred in providing it. Recoveries paid to port authorities, steamer agents, CFS operators and other third parties therefore fell outside taxable value. The subsequent amendment including reimbursable expenditure applied prospectively. Consequently, a service-tax demand founded on such reimbursements, along with dependent interest and penalties, was unsustainable.

Service-tax demands require a show cause notice to identify the taxable activity, legal basis and material facts; adjudication cannot sustain liability on a new classification or factual foundation. Accordingly, demands concerning management training, translation and other receipts fail where the notices lacked foundational allegations. Disclosed hall-hire receipts involving a classification dispute do not establish suppression or intent to evade tax, so extended limitation is unavailable; defective pleading also defeats the remaining demand. Japanese-language training qualifies for the separate recreational-training exemption, and a later amendment narrowing vocational training operates only from publication. Without deliberate evasion, penalties are not imposable.

FOR-destination sales may treat retailers' premises as the place of removal where freight is included in the sale value and the seller retains transit risk and ownership until delivery; outward GTA services to those premises consequently qualify for CENVAT credit. Manpower supply used in production, packing, maintenance and storage, and godown or depot rental used for finished-goods storage, qualify as input services subject to invoice, tax-payment and procedural verification. Extended limitation for reverse-charge service tax requires evidence of fraud, suppression or deliberate contravention with intent to evade tax; audit detection alone is insufficient where statutory returns disclosed the relevant particulars. Without a sustainable demand, interest and penalties do not arise.

Inspection and measurement of premises claimed for the liquidation estate may be directed to identify and segregate the relevant area without adjudicating disputed third-party title or possession. Section 60(5) covers matters arising from or relating to liquidation, but does not ordinarily permit determination of complex ownership and possession disputes between third parties. A limited inspection direction neither determines title nor disturbs possessory rights, and any subsequent action by the liquidator must comply with law.

Writ intervention at the inception of arbitration under the SEBI online dispute resolution framework is confined to demonstrable lack of authority, breach of the governing framework, or a patent jurisdictional defect. Round-robin allocation of a complaint to an ODR institution must account for qualifications concerning the relevant stock exchange, but non-listing of securities on the administering exchange alone does not establish a patent absence of authority. Allocation, limitation, locus, maintainability, repeated proceedings, res judicata, abuse of process and arbitrability must be determined by the arbitral forum. Following failed conciliation, participation in arbitration is required without waiving legally sustainable objections.

Interim status quo protecting the company's assets continues pending appointment of a valuer and determination of the proposed buyout of the appellant's shareholding. The valuation process had not begun because no valuer had been appointed, and preservation of the existing position remained necessary until that process could proceed. Allegations of oppression and mismanagement were not adjudicated in the appeal.

Automated PCR-based diagnostic systems that process specimens through lysis, extraction, amplification and fluorescence detection, then compare signals against assay-specific criteria to produce positive or negative results, are classified as optical measuring or checking instruments under tariff item 9031 49 00. Classification follows Rule 1 of the General Rules for Interpretation because the system does not determine a specimen's property, composition, concentration or quantity, as required for classification as an instrument for physical or chemical analysis under heading 9027. Licensing for in-vitro diagnostic use does not control tariff classification. The applicable basic customs duty is 7.5% ad valorem, with import IGST at 18%, rather than the concessional treatment claimed under heading 9027.

Forged import documents render a Bill of Entry and registration records legally ineffective, and detection of fraud permits confiscation action to proceed within the extended limitation period. A purchaser must exercise due diligence regarding the genuineness of import documents. Where confiscated goods are redeemed under Section 125, duty and consequential interest on delayed payment arise in addition to redemption fine. Bona fide acquisition and deletion of penalty may justify mitigating the redemption fine, but do not remove liability for duty, interest, or confiscation arising from a fraudulent import.

Customs cannot recover alleged excess DEPB credit under Section 28 of the Customs Act, 1962, where the claim concerns export benefit computation rather than short levy of duty on a specified import transaction. DEPB credit remains distinct from customs duty, even if the scheme is characterised as an exemption mechanism. Questions concerning cancellation or reduction of allegedly excess DEPB credit fall within DGFT jurisdiction. On this basis, recovery proceedings under Section 28, along with consequential interest and penalties, were not sustainable. The analysis also applies judicial discipline by following a materially identical earlier Bench decision.

Brass scrap shown as originating in the UAE is treated as originating in Pakistan where matching container and seal records establish loading at Karachi and transit through Jebel Ali without unloading or reloading, corroborated by statements that only the bill of lading date changed. Pre-shipment inspection certificates cannot establish UAE origin without an actual UAE inspection. Once Pakistani origin is established, the goods fall under tariff item 98060000 and attract the enhanced customs duty prescribed for goods originating in or exported from Pakistan. Reassessment may consequently sustain confiscation, redemption fine and penalties for origin misdeclaration.

Customs duty demands and penalties for alleged diversion of duty-free imported goods and fraudulent exports require reliable, positive and corroborative evidence. Official export permissions, Customs examination, manufacturing and export certifications, realised export proceeds, and a subsisting export-obligation discharge certificate support compliance with DEEC licence conditions. Allegations cannot rest on grounds outside the show cause notice, suspicion, or retracted and internally inconsistent statements lacking corroboration and procedural safeguards for reliance on statements. Where the underlying diversion and substitution allegations are unproved, no independent basis remains for penalties based on connivance or abetment.

Writ jurisdiction under Article 226 does not extend to resolving disputed factual questions concerning an authorised representative's presence during customs sampling. The sampling report recorded the representative's presence, while the importer disputed his authority; subsequent sampling admittedly occurred in his presence. Laboratory testing found that the declared industrial oil failed prescribed parameters, and comparable testing standards had previously supported customs action. The seizure challenge was therefore not maintainable on the disputed sampling contention, and the customs action remained sustained.

Customs Broker licensing rules require authorisation from each represented client and reliable verification of the client's identity and functioning before customs transactions are undertaken. Filing a Shipping Bill without the named exporter's authorisation or contact may breach these independent obligations even without proof that the broker knew of prohibited goods. A licence and dongle must not be lent to another person for consideration: permitting use of broker credentials for customs transactions constitutes an impermissible transfer in substance, without requiring transfer of title. Deliberate credential sharing, unauthorised filings and attempted export of prohibited goods may justify revocation, security forfeiture and penalty as proportionate disciplinary measures.

Judicial review of a Settlement Commission order under Article 226 is limited to jurisdictional or statutory error, prejudice, fraud, bias or malice, and does not permit appellate reassessment of settled proceedings. A party that voluntarily elects settlement after not pursuing the statutory appeal cannot indirectly reopen the underlying show-cause notice, including limitation objections, without establishing a recognised ground for such limited review. Settlement of duty liability does not eliminate statutory interest: the Commission may direct the jurisdictional Commissioner to verify and quantify interest, and a higher amount than the party's calculation does not by itself establish illegality or lack of jurisdiction.

Section 54F eligibility depends on whether the taxpayer owns more than one residential house, other than the new residential asset, on the relevant date. Assessment of rental income from a let-out tannery under the head "Income from house property" does not convert that commercial building into a residential house. Ownership of one self-occupied residence and a separately let-out tannery therefore does not, on that basis, disqualify the taxpayer from deduction for investment in a new residential property. Denial of the Section 54F deduction solely because the tannery income was taxed as house-property income is unsustainable.

Reassessment proceedings under Section 148 required prior approval under Section 151 from the competent Chief Commissioner of Income Tax. Approval granted instead by the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax was not valid under the applicable CBDT instructions and the coordinate-bench position. The defect rendered the reassessment notice and all consequential assessment proceedings invalid, resulting in the issue being resolved in favour of the assessee.

Enhanced tax rates for unexplained income amendments without express retrospective effect apply prospectively from Financial Year 2017-18, corresponding to Assessment Year 2018-19 onwards. Where divergent High Court interpretations exist and no binding jurisdictional or Supreme Court authority applies, the interpretation favourable to the assessee prevails; tax for Assessment Year 2017-18 is computed under the unamended provision. Cash deposits lacking documented sources may attract an unexplained-money addition, but the whole deposit need not be treated as unexplained where reasonable cash-in-hand for ordinary requirements is accepted.

Corpus donations received with a specific direction to form part of a charitable trust's corpus are excluded from income under the statutory scheme for charitable trusts. While voluntary contributions generally constitute income for exemption purposes, specifically directed corpus contributions are capital receipts exempt from tax. Such donations should not be included when calculating income to determine whether the audit threshold requiring furnishing of Form No. 10B is met. Where excluding corpus donations leaves income below that threshold, no audit report is required and exemption remains available for the corpus contributions.

Penalty for under-reporting cannot rest solely on confirmation of a disallowance where lease-rental payments were made without tax deduction under a bona fide, disclosed and debatable interpretation that GNOIDA was a Government body exempt from the deduction requirement. The applicability of tax deduction at source depended on GNOIDA's status and raised an interpretational issue. Statutory protection remains available unless the explanation lacks bona fides or relevant material facts were not disclosed. Accordingly, the lease-rental disallowance did not constitute under-reporting of income, and penalty under Section 270A was unsustainable.

Educational wings operated by the same society cannot be treated as separate institutions for the monetary threshold under section 10(23C)(iiiad) merely because they have different names or provide different levels of education. Where operations share a common campus, management, ownership and infrastructure, and lack separate books of account and independent administration, they constitute one composite educational establishment. Their annual receipts must therefore be aggregated. Fragmenting receipts without proof of independent existence would undermine the threshold intended for genuinely small educational institutions, resulting in denial of the exemption where aggregated receipts exceed the prescribed limit.