Interim relief against a securities-market debarment was limited to completing an approved preferential issue of fully convertible warrants after penalty deposits. Public-shareholder approval, the company's substantial public shareholding, the capital-raising purpose, and the absence of allegations that the company dealt in securities supported this limited protection. The debarment otherwise remained effective, the underlying merits were left open, issuance time was extended by one week, and ordinary-course mutual-fund transactions were permitted.

Information under the Right to Information Act, 2005 extends to material held by or under the control of a public authority. Information concerning a private body is disclosable only where the public authority may access it under another law and subject to that law's conditions and restrictions. A public authority need not collect, collate, create, or obtain material absent from its records merely to answer an information request. Directions requiring a regulator to procure information from a private exchange for disclosure were inconsistent with these limits and unsustainable.

Forfeiture of 25% of a successful e-auction bid, including a refund claim, requires examination under Section 74 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. The relevant issues include whether the Official Liquidator suffered loss, whether the e-auction terms distinguish between earnest money deposit and security deposit, and whether forfeiture applies to 10% EMD or 25% of the bid amount. These matters require fresh consideration, with no final merits determination on forfeiture or refund.

Customs Broker obligations under Regulations 10(a), 10(d) and 10(n) require proper client authorisation, compliance advice, and reliance on reliable, independent and authentic KYC records. Authorisation letters need not invariably be obtained directly from importers where valid authority exists. A broker is not expected to independently assess the quality or valuation of imported goods subject to First Check assessment, customs examination and approved valuation. Obtaining IEC, GSTIN, PAN and supporting documents not shown to be forged satisfies KYC obligations; the regulations do not require physical verification of each importer's premises or continued operations. Subsequent unavailability of importers at declared addresses alone does not establish non-compliance.

Provisional release of seized imported goods under section 110A of the Customs Act, 1962 must balance revenue protection with the importer's ability to deal with the goods pending adjudication. Requiring a bank guarantee equivalent to approximately 80% of the goods' value was considered onerous where anti-dumping duty liability remained under investigation and no merits determination had been made. The release conditions were modified to require a bank guarantee for 30% of the differential duty and a bond covering the full value of the seized goods, with time-bound release of the goods.

Failure to fulfil an EPCG export obligation requires payment of proportionate customs duty and interest under the exemption conditions, even where imported machinery was destroyed by floods, unless a waiver is obtained from the prescribed committee or licensing authority. Installation of the machinery and destruction beyond the importer's control do not displace this fiscal liability. However, flood-related non-fulfilment does not justify confiscation, redemption fine or penalty where the machinery had been installed and was subsequently damaged beyond repair. The duty and interest demand remains enforceable, while confiscatory and penal consequences are removed.

Section 149 of the Customs Act, 1962 does not prescribe a limitation period for post-export amendment of shipping bills, provided contemporaneous documentary evidence supports the amendment. The three-month limit in Circular No. 36/2010-Cus. could not restrict conversion from the Advance Authorisation Scheme to the Duty Drawback Scheme or defeat the consequential export benefit. Notification No. 11/2022-Customs (N.T.), which introduced time limits for specified post-export conversions, could not apply retrospectively to exports completed before its issue. Shipping bills were therefore eligible for conversion and the corresponding duty drawback benefit.

Customs duty recovery for non-levy or short-levy under Section 28 cannot proceed while assessments made provisionally under Section 18 remain unfinalised. Export bonds recording an undertaking to pay finally assessed duty indicate provisional assessment, and finalisation is required under the prescribed procedure before recovery action. Redemption fine under Section 125 is not sustainable where goods exported under Section 18 bonds were neither seized nor provisionally released and are unavailable for confiscation. Consequently, demands issued before finalisation, along with redemption fine and penalties linked to unavailable exported goods, lack legal basis.

Transferee importers using DFIA licences obtained through fabricated exports remain liable for customs duty and penalty where the licences are void from inception. Bona fide purchaser status is not established merely by acquiring licences through intermediaries or making payment through banking channels. Required due diligence includes independently verifying the licences, underlying export transactions, issuing exporter and relevant customs release documentation. Reliance solely on brokers is insufficient. On materially identical fraud facts, the applicable coordinate-bench approach requires verification of licence authenticity; failure to do so leaves the transferee importer liable for duty and penal consequences.

Excess drawback arising from incorrect self-assessment and misclassification of exported goods must first be determined through reassessment under the Customs Act or, where applicable, the provisional-assessment mechanism. Section 75A(2) permits recovery only after the excess amount has been crystallised through the prescribed assessment process. Direct recovery proceedings under Section 75A(2), without reassessment or determination of liability under the relevant assessment provisions, are therefore impermissible and unsustainable.

Customs broker licensing proceedings cannot be set aside for alleged inquiry delay where the inquiry report followed the show-cause notice within the prescribed period and no factual basis for prejudice exists. Separate officers performed the investigation and inquiry functions, so the alleged breach of natural justice lacked factual foundation. As the alleged breaches of customs broker obligations under the Customs Brokers Licensing Regulations, 2018 had not been examined on their merits, the licensing order could not be annulled on those preliminary grounds; the alleged regulatory violations require merits adjudication.

Revocation of a Customs Broker licence for alleged breaches of obligations relating to export shipments was set aside because the allegations had already been found unsustainable in an identical matter involving the same exporter. No material factual distinction was established, and the earlier Tribunal decision had been accepted without challenge. Consequently, no substantial question of law arose, leaving the setting aside of licence revocation undisturbed.

Equipment cleared from a Free Trade Warehousing Zone into the Domestic Tariff Area under a fresh essentiality certificate for a different petroleum contract constitutes a fresh import, not a re-import eligible for exemption. The concessional import benefit is tied to deployment under the relevant certified petroleum operation, while the prescribed transfer mechanism requires specified undertakings and customs safeguards. Free Trade Warehousing Zone storage cannot create an alternative route to an additional fiscal benefit. Special Economic Zones Act customs fictions do not establish a universal re-import exemption: re-import requires continuity between the outward movement and return. Storage following completion of one contract and clearance for a distinct contract lacks that continuity.

Customs classification dispute concerned whether an inconclusive chemical report could establish that imported goods were base oil rather than press distillate oil. Key issues included reclassification based on a single technical parameter or tentative test-report wording, transaction value, benefit of doubt, and the inability to examine or cross-examine the chemical examiner as a potential breach of natural justice. The Supreme Court dismissed the civil appeals after counsel stated that a related appeal against the order relied on by the Tribunal had already been dismissed.

Admissibility of departmental CRCL test reports over private laboratory reports, self-assessment and transaction value in export duty assessment, alleged artificial splitting of consignments, evidentiary weight of confessional statements, relevance of discharge-port test reports in FOB contracts, and refund of deposits after a dropped demand are identified as the subject-matter issues. The Supreme Court condoned delay but found no ground to entertain the civil appeal and dismissed it. The available material does not state the substantive reasoning or determination on the identified issues.

For charitable trusts, capital gains treated as deemed application of income may be computed using indexed cost of acquisition where long-term capital gains are reinvested in another capital asset. The 15% accumulation entitlement operates independently of deemed application of capital gains, so both benefits may be claimed where charitable-income application requirements are met; this is not an impermissible double deduction. Donations from accumulated income to other trusts require factual verification, including whether recipient trusts hold the required registration or exemption status and whether supporting evidence substantiates the claim.

Non-receipt of assessment and appellate notices due to an incorrect email address justified restoration for fresh adjudication where the assessee had not responded during either proceeding and did not oppose remand. The assessment and appellate orders were set aside, and the matter was restored to the Assessing Officer for a fresh decision after providing fair opportunities of hearing.

Section 263 revision was unsustainable where the Assessing Officer had examined the Section 54F exemption claim and accepted that six flats formed one interconnected triplex residential unit. The same factual issue had been resolved in favour of treating the flats as a single residential house in an earlier assessment year. An assessment view consciously adopted after enquiry and supported by a plausible interpretation of "residential house" could not be replaced merely by a different view to establish an erroneous and revenue-prejudicial order. Judicial consistency required following the earlier coordinate-bench treatment on identical facts, rendering the revision order invalid.

Interest on borrowed capital incurred after completion of a real estate project and issuance of the occupation certificate is revenue expenditure where unsold flats are finished stock-in-trade ready for sale. Borrowing costs incurred up to project completion form part of construction cost, but capitalisation ends when the units are ready for sale. Section 40(a)(ia) does not require deferral of an otherwise allowable interest deduction until the flats are sold. Once tax is deducted and paid in accordance with its proviso, the interest is deductible in that previous year.

Rule 10CA prevents a transfer-pricing adjustment where the tested party's margin falls within the applicable interquartile range or statutory tolerance. Software development services and online advertisement support services therefore required no adjustment. Foreign-exchange differences on realisation of ITES export invoices require verification of their operational nexus, with corresponding comparable-margin adjustments where appropriate. Services Export from India Scheme scrip income is non-operating because it arises from a government incentive scheme rather than ITES operations. Virinchi Limited was excluded due to the insignificant scale of its ITES segment. Proposed changes to other comparables and alleged margin-computation errors require fresh FAR analysis, verification and reasoned determination.