Liberal interpretation of sufficient cause favours condoning appeal delays caused by genuine personal hardship and inability to access electronic communications, rather than treating such delay as deliberate or negligent. Additional evidence on joint property ownership, timing of payments and investment sources may be admitted where it goes to the root of a source-of-investment issue. Rule 29 requires the Revenue to receive a fair opportunity to verify that material; the issue must then undergo fresh fact-based determination, with the prior appellate determination vacated where necessary.

Search assessments under sections 153A/153C remained valid because seized documents had an indirect connection with the additions, despite the challenge concerning incriminating material in unabated years. Additions for unexplained bank deposits were not sustainable where fund-flow records and documented sources, including withdrawals, salary, savings, transfers and maturity or sale proceeds, explained the deposits, including joint-account credits. Rough seized salary calculations could not establish undisclosed income without evidence of actual receipt or independent corroboration. A mobile-phone note concerning gold did not prove unexplained jewellery investment absent purchase evidence or a financial trail, particularly where family holdings were within reasonable CBDT norms. Additions based on deposits or informal notings require adequate evidentiary support.

Transferable tenancy rights linked to an identified immovable property and sold for ascertainable consideration constitute a chargeable capital asset for capital-gains purposes. Sections 45 and 48 operate as an integrated charging and computation framework; inability to prove the previous owner's historical acquisition cost following inheritance affects quantification, not chargeability, where the rights remain identifiable and capable of valuation. Fair market value as on 1 April 2001 and the resulting indexed cost require factual and, where necessary, technical verification of the valuation report. Capital gains therefore remain chargeable, subject to lawful recomputation of the taxable amount after valuation and indexation are determined.

BSNL VRS-2019 compensation is treated as retrenchment compensation arising from forced retirement under the BSNL revival scheme, rather than as a payment governed by the voluntary-retirement exemption. The distinction between retrenchment compensation and voluntary-retirement compensation determines the applicable exemption: the payment qualifies for exemption under Section 10(10B) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, as a capital receipt, while Section 10(10C) does not apply.

Reassessment jurisdiction under the amended regime requires information suggesting income escapement and approved satisfaction linking seized material to the assessee; an independent enquiry is not required at that stage. Extended limitation cannot be based on gross alleged unrecorded purchases when only the embedded profit is chargeable, the annual threshold is unmet, and separate years cannot be aggregated. Third-party digital tally data cannot constitute entries in the assessee's books, while undisclosed purchases are not an asset for extended reopening. A belated return filed under Section 148 without extension does not require a Section 143(2) notice. Additions resting on untested third-party statements or records fail where requested cross-examination is denied and corroborative evidence is absent.

Section 153C jurisdiction over a person other than the searched person depends on the deemed search date, determined by recording satisfaction or receiving records. Where satisfaction was recorded in the deemed search year 2022-23, section 153C(3) did not permit proceedings for that year; any reassessment recourse lay under section 147. Jurisdiction also requires a satisfaction note identifying material specifically relating to that person and linking it to alleged escaped income for the relevant assessment years. General references to electronic evidence, or a ledger already contained in regular books without that linkage, cannot support consolidated satisfaction for multiple years. Failure of both requirements renders the assessments legally unsustainable.

Foreign tax credit under Section 90 cannot be denied solely because Form 67 was furnished after the prescribed time. Rule 128(9) requires Form 67 to support a foreign tax credit claim, but delayed filing is a procedural defect that does not extinguish the substantive entitlement. The Assessing Officer must verify the foreign taxes paid and the credit claimed, and allow the credit in accordance with law where the claim is otherwise valid.

Section 10(26AAB) exempts income of an agricultural-produce market committee or board constituted under law to regulate agricultural-produce marketing. A mistaken exemption claim under Section 10(23C) in the return does not defeat entitlement to the correct statutory exemption where the entity's status and prior eligibility are undisputed. Failure to file a revised return should not, in these circumstances, bar the claim under Section 10(26AAB). The exemption remains available subject to verification that the committee or board satisfies the statutory conditions.

Reassessment notices and a consequential assessment issued in the name of a transferor company after its amalgamation were unsustainable because the entity had ceased to exist from the appointed date. The appointed date preceded issuance of notices for reassessment and scrutiny assessment, and the tax authorities had been informed of the amalgamation. Proceedings against the erstwhile amalgamated entity were therefore invalid, resulting in quashing of the reassessment notices and consequential assessment.

Foreign tax credit under Section 90 cannot be denied solely because Form No. 67 was filed after the prescribed time where the return was filed within the extended due date and substantive eligibility is otherwise undisputed. Rule 128 is a procedural machinery provision governing the method of claiming credit and cannot override the substantive entitlement to treaty relief when prescribed conditions are fulfilled. Amended Rule 128(9) permits Form No. 67 to be furnished by the end of the relevant assessment year where the return is timely filed. The credit remains subject to necessary verification.

Penalty for an alleged contravention of the cash-receipt restrictions cannot survive where the underlying reassessment has been annulled and the corresponding addition deleted. The penalty was founded on the cash-transaction allegation in the quantum assessment and was consequential to the validity of that assessment. Once the assessment ceased to exist, there was no independent basis for the penalty. The penalty imposed under section 271D was therefore unsustainable and quashed.

Cash deposits claimed as agricultural sale proceeds require satisfactory substantiation of their source. Accepted land records and crop reports establish agricultural activity, while deposits made in tranches matching harvesting seasons and withdrawals for agricultural purposes corroborate the explanation. For a small agriculturist, the absence of crop-sale bills alone does not justify treating deposits as unexplained where no alternative source is identified. On these facts, the deposits were treated as fully explained agricultural proceeds and the unexplained-money addition was deleted.

Cash deposited during demonetisation by a small trading business was explained by accepted presumptive turnover and income. Where income is computed under the presumptive taxation scheme and the taxpayer is not legally required to maintain or audit books, internally prepared records cannot alone negate the explanation. The deposit therefore could not be treated as unexplained money or taxed at the special rate.

Reassessment involving the sale of one residential property and investment in another requires fresh examination of the taxpayer's contentions after an adequate opportunity of hearing. The Assessing Officer must decide the issues afresh in accordance with law. The merits of the additions and the capital-gains claim remain unadjudicated, requiring fresh adjudication rather than a substantive determination of the tax claims.

Income-tax additions for alleged penny-stock transactions require substantive and corroborative evidence linking the taxpayer to undisclosed income. Recorded share purchases and sales showing a loss cannot be displaced merely by investigation-wing information where no material rebuts the transactions. Likewise, an estimated profit from alleged share trading cannot rest on system information, presumptions, or a percentage-based computation when the activity is specifically denied and remains unproved. Both additions were deleted for lack of substantive corroborative evidence.

Section 119(2)(b) provides an additional administrative remedy and does not displace the statutory appellate remedy to examine substantive entitlement to exemption for deemed application of income under section 11. Although Form No. 9A is prescribed, its filing mode and timing are procedural, and substantial compliance may suffice. Where electronic filing had been newly introduced, the form was filed during assessment proceedings, the delay was about three months, and no deliberate or mala fide conduct was established, sufficient cause existed for condonation. The delayed form may be treated as valid, subject to verification of the remaining statutory conditions for the claim.

Section 69 does not apply where an immovable-property investment is recorded in a partnership firm's regular books and funded through identifiable partners' capital accounts. In the absence of defects in or rejection of the books, the firm's recorded investment cannot be treated as unexplained merely because concerns arise about individual partners' financial capacity or sources of funds. Those concerns require examination in the respective partners' assessments. Accordingly, an addition for unexplained investment is unsustainable and must be deleted.

Principles of natural justice require appellate adjudication under the Income-tax Act to afford an adequate opportunity of hearing. Where hearing notices go unanswered, non-compliance alone does not exclude circumstances warranting a further opportunity to submit evidence and information on disputed additions and consequential penalties. Ex parte appellate orders sustaining such additions and penalties were set aside, and the matters remitted for fresh adjudication after an adequate hearing opportunity.

Unrealised mark-to-market gains on specified excluded forward exchange contracts are recognised for tax purposes only on settlement under Section 43AA and Income Computation and Disclosure Standard VI. Paragraph 8(5) requires settlement-based recognition of exchange differences for those contracts; financial-reporting recognition under Accounting Standard-11 does not control taxable-income computation. Accordingly, unrealised gains recorded in the books before settlement are not taxable in the relevant years, and additions based on such pre-settlement recognition are unsustainable.

TNMM benchmarking using an OP/OC profit level indicator requires reliable segmental profitability, including a demonstrated allocation of common operating expenses. A BPO segment with unallocated entity-level expenses may understate costs and overstate margins and should be excluded as unreliable. A separate software-development business does not disqualify an entity where distinct ITeS segment results are available and the retained segments are functionally comparable. Information collected from a proposed comparable supports benchmarking only if the relevant segmental financial data reliably reflects profitability.