Clean Environment Cess liability on closing stock concerns taxability or excisability and is therefore treated as a determination relating to the rate of excise duty. Section 35G excludes High Court appeals on such questions, while Section 35L(2) places them within the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction. Consequently, an appeal challenging cess liability on closing stock must be filed before the Supreme Court and is not maintainable before the High Court.

Interest on genuine EMI loans or advances, including compensatory or penal interest for delayed instalments, is consideration for the use of money rather than a separate credit-card or tolerance service. Routing disbursal, accounting or recovery through a credit-card account does not alter the transaction's substantive character as a bilateral loan. Such interest remains excluded from service-tax value before 1 July 2012 and falls within the negative-list treatment of lending thereafter. Extended limitation and penalties do not apply where the dispute is interpretational, transactions were recorded and disclosed, and fraud, wilful misstatement, suppression or intent to evade tax is not established.

The pre-1 April 2011 definition of input service under the CENVAT Credit Rules covered services used in activities relating to business and did not require a direct nexus with exported output services. Employee group insurance could therefore qualify for Rule 5 refund, subject to verification of the amount and other statutory conditions. Club membership services require evidence of actual business use, such as customer entertainment or business meetings; employee health, fitness or recreation use alone does not establish eligibility. Rule 5 refund is confined to eligible accumulated credit for the claimed refund period, excluding credit relating to services received after that period.

Provisional attachment under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 is examined in relation to assets allegedly acquired through layered share transactions involving bribe proceeds. Statements recorded under statutory powers, banking and trading records, inflated share prices, investments in non-functioning companies, and purchaser funding from external sources support a prima facie allegation that proceeds of crime were projected as legitimate long-term capital gains. Interconnected transactions attract the statutory presumption, while the appellant's role in the university trust weakens a claim of lack of influence. Pending scheduled-offence and money-laundering trials support preservation of the attached assets.

Prior setting aside of seizure or freezing on a procedural, non-merits ground does not bar a subsequent attachment under the PMLA. Quashing predicate-offence proceedings for specified individuals does not extend to a firm or other individuals against whom proceedings continue. Compensation paid for mining, environmental or forest-law violations neither compounds alleged money-laundering offences nor offsets identified proceeds of crime. Bank deposits and term deposits linked to ore sale proceeds may remain attached as proceeds of crime or equivalent value pending final adjudication, preserving property for possible confiscation.

PMLA bail restrictions may be outweighed in appropriate circumstances by prolonged custody and a serious chronic medical condition requiring repeated hospital treatment. The available material did not overcome the statutory conditions on merits, but nearly ten months' incarceration, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and the limited allegation of parking tainted money supported release on bail. The absence of arraignment in predicate-offence proceedings formed part of the relevant context.

Section 37A permits temporary seizure of equivalent domestic assets where recorded reasons to believe support suspected contravention of the prohibition on acquiring, holding, owning, possessing or transferring foreign exchange or foreign assets outside India. Information concerning foreign entities, beneficial ownership, foreign-held profits and an overseas decree can provide the required prima facie basis, notwithstanding a pending challenge to that decree. Its application to foreign exchange or assets continuously held abroad after Section 37A commenced is prospective, even where the underlying transactions pre-date commencement. Foreign employment permits alone do not displace the statutory residence test; the estate's status, rather than an administratrix's personal residential status, governs the assessment.

Section 32A immunity and the clean-slate principle extend to a corporate debtor sold as a going concern in liquidation, subject to satisfaction of statutory conditions. Pre-sale investigations, proceedings, non-compliances, penalties and liabilities that do not survive the insolvency process cannot be imposed on the purchaser merely because the sale occurs in liquidation rather than through CIRP. Requests for waivers or concessions under other statutory regimes must be made to the relevant statutory authorities.

Death of an individual resolution applicant after CoC approval does not, by itself, make a resolution plan unimplementable or create a ground for liquidation under Section 33(1). The plan's continued viability must be assessed within the statutory framework, including whether an eligible, qualified and willing heir can implement it without Section 29A disqualification. Liquidation should not be ordered automatically where the plan or resolution request does not address that contingency. A pending Section 12A withdrawal application following a CoC-approved settlement must be considered according to law before liquidation; dismissing it as infructuous is unsustainable. The CIRP therefore remains revived pending adjudication of the withdrawal request.

A deposit made expressly without prejudice after a Section 7 insolvency petition is reserved for orders does not constitute an unconditional admission of liability or default. Where the corporate debtor disputes maintainability, the existence of financial debt and default, those objections require determination and cannot be displaced by closure of the proceeding based solely on the deposit. Claims for interest, default interest and legal expenses must each have a contractual or statutory basis and be legally recoverable before they can support a financial debt. Permission to pursue legally maintainable claims does not adjudicate them. Closure without deciding the disputed threshold requirements is legally unsustainable.

Dissolution of a partnership at will by written notice requires the firm's property to be applied first to debts and liabilities, with the remaining surplus distributed according to partners' respective rights. The dissolution date fixes the ascertainment of business profits and losses but does not limit an outgoing partner's entitlement to the value of immovable partnership assets as at that date. Continued use or retention of those assets by former partners through a new firm does not displace liquidation and final settlement. Assets may be retained only upon payment of the entitled partner's market-value share after liability adjustments; otherwise, they must be sold and the proceeds distributed.

Social Welfare Surcharge does not arise where basic customs duty on imported goods is exempt under Notification No. 24/2015-Customs through debit of a MEIS duty credit scrip. The debit records the value of the basic customs duty exemption availed; it is not payment of basic customs duty. Because the surcharge is computed by reference to basic customs duty, no Social Welfare Surcharge is payable when that duty is fully exempt. The conclusion favours the importer claiming the MEIS-based exemption.

Before 3 June 2016, the RNI-registration requirement for newsprint applied at clearance rather than import; its later extension to imports of warehoused goods operated prospectively. Serial No. 264 of Notification No. 12/2012-Cus. granted newsprint exemption without an RNI-registration or Actual User condition. For newsprint not notified under Section 123 of the Customs Act, the Department bore the initial burden of proving unlawful import, diversion, or clearance through dummy users. Without cogent evidence of excess goods, local-market diversion, illicit consideration, or dummy users, serial-number discrepancies alone could not sustain confiscation or penalties.

Regulation 12(8) of the Handling of Cargo in Customs Areas Regulations, 2009 expressly limits penalties to Rs. 50,000. Penalties proposed under other Customs Act provisions and licence cancellation were not imposed and were not challenged. The statutory ceiling cannot be exceeded, and an earlier order cannot displace the Regulation's clear maximum. The penalty therefore stands restricted to Rs. 50,000.

Breach of a post-import condition restricting duty-exempt aircraft to approved non-scheduled charter operations renders the aircraft confiscable and makes customs duty recoverable upon redemption. Recovery arising from confiscation and redemption following breach of an exemption condition operates independently of the limitation regime for non-levy or short-levy demands. Customs valuation must use actual ferry transport charges and actual transit-insurance premium where available, rather than notional additions; the duty quantum requires recalculation accordingly. Unauthorised commercial use may also support penalties for improper importation where the importer and responsible managerial personnel were directly involved and the penalties are proportionate.

Target Plus Scheme exemption permits duty-credit imports with a demonstrable broad nexus to the product group stated in the certificate; it does not require an item-by-item link between imported goods and the precise exported goods. The nexus must be established separately for each export product group, so entitlement cannot extend to unrelated groups. Extended limitation and consequential penalties require fraud, collusion, wilful misstatement, suppression, or intent to evade duty. Ambiguous policy language, reliance on a bona fide interpretation, valid unrevoked certificates, and Customs-held export records do not, without more, establish such culpable conduct; duty recovery on the extended period is therefore unsustainable.

Gold imported contrary to restrictions imposed under the Customs Act or any other law in force falls within the definition of prohibited goods. Import controls may arise from regulatory notifications and circulars, including restrictions limiting bulk imports to authorised agencies and passenger imports to the Baggage Rules. Importation by persons outside those permitted categories, including through an unauthorised land route, attracts confiscation consequences and the applicable Customs penalty regime. Where prohibited status is identified and the basis for penalty is disclosed, an adjudicating authority's failure to expressly cite the specific penalty clause does not invalidate the exercise of statutory power.

Ex-gratia compensation under the BSNL Voluntary Retirement Scheme, 2019, where paid under a Government-approved workforce-reduction plan, is treated by substance as retrenchment compensation rather than voluntary-retirement compensation. It is a capital receipt eligible for exemption under section 10(10B), without the ceiling applicable to section 10(10C), notwithstanding the scheme's nomenclature or a restrictive understanding of workman. Appellate authorities may admit a legitimate exemption claim not made in an original or revised return to determine correct tax liability. Revised computations may be submitted for verification of the compensation and scheme, followed by consequential refunds where due.

Limitation under the first proviso to section 149(1) retains the pre-amendment reassessment time limit for assessment years beginning on or before 1 April 2021. For assessment year 2015-16, the applicable six-year period ended on 31 March 2022; consequently, a section 148 notice issued on 7 April 2022 was time-barred. The amended extended period does not revive reassessment proceedings already barred by limitation. Later provisos permitting exclusion of time were neither in force on the notice date nor applicable where no additional time to respond under section 148A(b) had been sought. The consequential reassessment was vitiated.

Overdue receivables arising solely from software development and ITES transactions accepted at arm's length must be assessed within the transfer-pricing analysis of those underlying transactions. Rule 10B requires reasonably accurate adjustments to uncontrolled comparables for material differences affecting price, cost or profit. Denying a working capital adjustment while making a separate notional-interest adjustment for delayed associated-enterprise receivables is inconsistent with that framework. Working capital adjustment must be granted first; once allowed, no separate transfer-pricing adjustment for interest on the overdue receivables is warranted.