The MSME revival framework requires a borrower seeking its benefit to substantiate MSME status and invoke the prescribed procedure. A belated claim without registration evidence or a prescribed application does not bar insolvency proceedings based on established debt and default exceeding the statutory threshold. Debt acknowledgments and settlement proposals admitting liability are relevant to assessing limitation for an insolvency application.

Objections to a creditor's standing and the maintainability of an insolvency application against a personal guarantor are adjudicated at the Section 100 stage, after the resolution professional submits a recommendatory report under Section 99. Jurisdictional and limitation objections are also considered at that stage, rather than before the professional's appointment. The treatment of a debtor's own application under Section 94 is distinct from that of a creditor's application under Section 95. The creditor's substantive entitlement to initiate proceedings remains undecided.

An appeal under Section 19 of the Contempt of Courts Act lies against an order imposing punishment for contempt, not against dismissal of a contempt petition where no punishment has been imposed. Section 425 of the Companies Act attracts the Contempt of Courts Act, including its appellate provision. Contempt punishment requires deliberate disobedience to be established beyond doubt. In a dispute over company bank accounts, the transactions were attributed to post-dated cheques already held by the applicant; neither their issuance after the direction nor their encashment or withdrawal was established.

Related-party status alone does not justify rejecting a declared customs transaction value; evidence must show that the relationship influenced the import price. Customs valuation methods must be applied sequentially, starting with transaction value and comparable-goods methods before later methods are used. Prices of identical or similar goods imported from unrelated suppliers had been accepted. Where no influence on the prices of the imports in question was demonstrated, the declared values were accepted and the differential duty demand, confiscation and penalties were set aside.

Section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962 requires reasonable belief based on objective material available at seizure; unexplained possession and the purity of unmarked gold do not, by themselves, establish that belief. Without reasonable belief, the burden under Section 123 does not shift to the possessor, and the Department remains responsible for proving foreign origin and smuggling. Uncorroborated retracted statements cannot alone establish the smuggled character of unmarked gold, and reliance on statements requires compliance with Section 138B. Confiscation and penalties cannot be sustained without proof of smuggling.

Court-directed cash deposits made towards prospective customs duty before assessment are not payments of customs duty, so the statutory limitation for duty refunds does not apply. A bank guarantee securing the release of goods is also not a payment of customs duty. The depositor is entitled to a refund of the cash deposit with applicable interest from the date of deposit until refund.

Revenue bears the burden of displacing an importer's brown rice protein powder classification and cannot substitute assumptions for an unrebutted technical opinion identifying cereal proteins. HSN notes distinguish cereal proteins from textured protein substances; the stated 90% protein content for vegetable isolates is not a mandatory threshold for cereal proteins. The classification analysis favours tariff item 3504 0099, although tariff item 2106 1000 is also identified. Rule 3 favours a specific description, while Rule 4 applies only if earlier rules do not determine classification. Foreign customs rulings are not binding under Indian customs law. Extended limitation is unavailable where the classification is disclosed and no suppression or wilful misstatement occurs. Confiscation, redemption fine and penalty are unsustainable where the goods are unavailable and the dispute involves no incorrect description or valuation or bad faith.

Two-ton split air conditioners incorporating a refrigerating unit fall under tariff item 8415 82 10. In tariff classification, a specific entry takes precedence over a generic entry when both describe the goods. The tariff distinguishes split air conditioners incorporating a refrigerating unit from those without one, making that feature relevant to the applicable entry.

The extended limitation period under the Customs Act, 1962 requires circumstances such as collusion, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts. Prior departmental knowledge of the nature and description of imported goods, followed by inaction within the normal limitation period, does not justify invoking the extended period in the absence of those circumstances. A wholly time-barred show cause notice raises a threshold jurisdictional question, and an order passed without jurisdiction cannot be cured on appeal.

Personal penalties under Section 114 of the Customs Act, 1962 require mens rea and a positive, deliberate act of abetment that renders goods liable to confiscation. In the context of fraudulent exports, negligence or administrative oversight by customs officers alone does not establish the penal abetment necessary for imposing personal penalties.

Interest on a refunded customs investigation deposit treated as a pre-deposit runs from the date of deposit at the 6% rate prescribed by the applicable statutory notifications. A statutory tribunal cannot award a higher rate in excess of those notifications or exercise the writ jurisdiction available to High Courts. Interest therefore cannot be enhanced to 12% in these circumstances.

Under the Customs Act, an importer seeking a countervailing duty refund bears the burden of rebutting the presumption that the duty was passed on to customers. Invoices showing no recovery of the duty, balance sheets and a chartered accountant's certificate supported by accounting records can rebut that presumption, permitting payment of the refund. Failure to claim the duty as expenditure does not, by itself, prove that its burden was passed on. The applicable Board circular supports reliance on the certificate, particularly alongside books of account, and the certificate cannot be disregarded contrary to that circular.

Departmental instructions prescribe monetary limits for appeals before the High Court, with exceptions including classification and refund issues of a legal or recurring nature. The amount involved was not claimed to exceed the prescribed threshold, and classification was neither pleaded nor argued. The appeals remain pending, and their maintainability has not been finally determined.

Receipts from property held under trust and incidental activities do not, by their existence or quantum alone, establish commercial activity under the proviso to section 2(15) and section 13(8) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The nature of the activities, the trust's dominant purpose and application of income are relevant to charitable exemption. Section 11(2) permits accumulation for charitable purposes subject to prescribed requirements. Late filing of Form 10 is not necessarily fatal when it is available before assessment is completed; the form need not separately particularise every charitable object or proposed expenditure.

For rent-controlled premises, reasonable expected rent under section 23(1)(a) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 cannot exceed standard rent plus permissible statutory increases. The assessing officer must determine standard rent even if it has not previously been fixed. Section 23(1)(b) applies where actual rent received or receivable exceeds reasonable expected rent. The rate offered for a vacant floor cannot be mechanically applied to floors occupied by protected tenants. The tenanted floors are subject to rent control: registered instruments recorded tenancy continuity and transfers, the premises were in an area covered by Schedule I to the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999, and no statutory exemption was established.

Before 1 April 2023, section 151 required approval from the specified higher authority for a reassessment notice issued more than three years after the end of the relevant assessment year. Approval by a Commissioner did not satisfy that requirement, even where the notice recorded approval by the Principal Chief Commissioner. The exclusion provision inserted into section 151 with effect from 1 April 2023 applied prospectively and did not apply to a notice issued in 2022. Without the required approval, the notice lacked jurisdiction and the consequent assessment could not stand.

Unexplained expenditure under section 69C requires proof that expenditure was incurred and its source was unexplained; supplier invoice discrepancies alone do not establish both conditions. Business expenditure under section 37 requires a business purpose, and an increase in fees or comparison with prior turnover alone does not justify disallowance. Section 68 applies to credits, not loan repayments recorded as debits. Loan confirmations, financial statements and bank records can support the lender's identity, creditworthiness and transaction genuineness. Differences between GST and book turnover do not establish suppressed sales where commercial credit notes and customer ledgers reconcile them and no off-book receipts are shown. Payments by advertising agencies to newspaper publishers for publication do not require tax deduction where no separate production or consultancy work is identified.

Under Section 144C, the Dispute Resolution Panel cannot enhance income by introducing a wholly new source arising after and absent from the draft assessment order. The applicable Revenue appeal provision requires a Panel direction, not merely refusal to entertain a fresh proposal. Foreign-currency loans to associated enterprises require currency-specific benchmarking rather than domestic rupee rates or unsupported risk premiums. For exempt-income expenditure, sufficient satisfaction permits Rule 8D; where own funds exceed relevant investments and no specific borrowing funded them, a presumption against interest attribution applies. Administrative expenditure is computed using investments yielding exempt dividends during the year; without evidence of error, the voluntary allocation remains the floor. Section 115JB requires exempt-income expenditure to be identified independently from the accounts; Rule 8D is not automatically incorporated into book profit. Borrowing costs for an overseas acquisition through subsidiaries may be deductible where commercial expediency establishes a business nexus.

Transfer-pricing operating margins require comparability adjustments for material differences in capacity utilisation under the transactional net margin method, because fixed costs are spread over different production volumes. Capacity-utilisation information may be obtained from comparable companies to assess the adjustment. Operating-margin calculations also require consistent treatment of income and related expenditure: costs incurred to earn R&D fees treated as non-operating are excluded from operating costs.

The income-tax addition under section 56 arose from the difference between a property's stamp duty value and its purchase consideration. The approved valuer's report was admitted as additional evidence after the first appellate authority had not considered it because it was not furnished during assessment. A departmental valuation reference under section 50C had not been made despite the taxpayer's request. Fresh assessment was directed with consideration of both valuation reports and an adequate opportunity of hearing; the correctness of the addition remains undetermined.