Section 50(1) of the NDPS Act requires a person facing a personal search to receive a genuine option of being searched before the nearest Magistrate or an independent Gazetted Officer. A Gazetted Officer who belongs to the investigating agency may not meet the independence requirement. Missing panch-witness signatures on the statutory notice may weaken prima facie proof that the required intimation was given. Such defects can render an alleged recovery suspect and, together with the absence of criminal antecedents, may create reasonable grounds supporting bail.

Airport customs and immigration areas retain the character of public places under the NDPS Act despite controlled access, so interceptions and searches there fall under Section 43 rather than Sections 41 and 42. Section 43 does not require prior recording of information or reasons of belief, preventing alleged non-compliance with Sections 41 and 42 from creating a prima facie basis for bail. Where medical and X-ray material and alleged capsule recovery support possession of commercial-quantity cocaine, the Section 37 bail threshold applies. Challenges to Customs Act search compliance require trial evidence, and parity does not arise where no narcotics were recovered from the co-accused.

Section 50 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act requires a person proposed for search to be informed of the option to be taken, without unnecessary delay, to the nearest Gazetted Officer of the specified departments or nearest Magistrate. The safeguard aims to secure an independent third-party search. "Nearest" concerns convenience and prevention of delay rather than compulsory wording in the notice. A notice offering search before any Gazetted Officer or Magistrate may satisfy the requirement where it does not propose an authorised raiding-team member and the person is properly apprised of the option.

Consideration for organising outbound Hajj tours, where the tour services are consumed outside Indian territory, falls outside service tax under Tour Operator Service. The applicable principle excludes consideration for arranging outbound tours from the levy when the underlying services are consumed beyond India. Accordingly, receipts from outbound Hajj tours are not chargeable to service tax under that service category.

Customs authorities must consider the pending representation seeking provisional release of imported goods on merits and in accordance with law, and decide it within four weeks. The operative direction addresses timely determination of the request for provisional release; no further factual basis, release conditions, or substantive customs issue is provided.

Business welfare and ordinary write-off claims require evidence-based assessment rather than unsupported ad hoc disallowance. A non-compete payment that protects commercial use of an acquired trademark constitutes a depreciable business or commercial right. Costs may be allocated to section 80IB-eligible units only where they have a direct operational or product-specific nexus; general corporate costs, head-office depreciation, and further foreign-travel allocations unsupported by such nexus should not reduce unit profits. Finance costs, R&D allocation, and the interaction of sections 80HHC and 80IB require verification of unit-wise facts and computations. Corporate guarantee pricing requires year-specific transfer-pricing benchmarking, not reliance solely on a subsequent year's rate.

Limitation for reassessment under section 149 and valid sanction under section 151 are mandatory jurisdictional conditions. For AYs 2013-14 and 2014-15, the surviving period after exclusion of the response period and the minimum extension had expired before notices were issued; for AY 2015-16, the relaxation scheme did not preserve action initiated from 1 April 2021. For AYs 2016-17 and 2017-18, reassessment initiated more than three years after year-end required approval from the authority specified under section 151(ii). Approval from an authority other than the prescribed authority invalidated jurisdiction, leaving the merits of additions unadjudicated.

Section 153(2) requires reassessment within one year from the end of the financial year in which the Section 148 notice is served. A request to Swiss authorities for information relating to financial year 2006-07 could not extend that period because the relevant exchange-of-information protocol applied only to fiscal years commencing on or after 1 April 2011. Notice served on 30 March 2012 therefore required completion by 31 March 2013. The reassessment order made on 18 March 2014 was time-barred, and the reassessment proceedings were quashed.

Cash deposits in a taxpayer's bank account must be satisfactorily explained through supporting particulars. A recent cash withdrawal followed by a proximate redeposit can make the redeposit explanation plausible, allowing relief for that deposit. Claims that initial deposits arose from past savings or inheritance require evidence; without supporting material, the taxpayer does not discharge the onus of proving the source. Deposits for which no substantiation is provided remain liable to addition as unexplained cash credits.

Section 36(1)(va) permits consideration of a provident-fund contribution deposited after the prescribed due date where a demonstrated payment-portal malfunction made timely payment impossible. Relief under the doctrine of impossibility depends on the assessee furnishing documentary evidence that the portal glitch caused the delay; an unsupported assertion is insufficient. Where evidence is absent, the claimed technical failure requires limited verification. Deduction is available if verification establishes that the delayed deposit resulted from the portal malfunction.

Jurisdiction for a best-judgment assessment under Section 144 must be exercised by the competent assessing authority. Where the taxpayer resided and conducted proprietary business in Aizawl, and the disputed cash deposits were held in an Aizawl bank account, no material supported the Delhi officer's assumption of jurisdiction. The assessment was therefore treated as without jurisdiction and non est, resolving the jurisdictional issue in the taxpayer's favour.

Rule 46A does not require a first appellate authority to obtain a remand report in every tax-credit matter. Where tax-credit claims have been examined and verified using material and documents on record, the appellate authority may either call for a report from the Assessing Officer or decide the claims directly. Its co-terminus powers permit grant of verified tax-credit relief without a remand report, and the absence of such report alone does not justify interference with that relief.

Fixed-asset investments and their sources recorded in audited books and the balance sheet cannot be treated as unexplained absent a valid basis to reject those records. Additions based solely on a demand for separate explanation are therefore unsustainable. Eligible payments reflected in audited financial statements likewise support a deduction claim unless there is a basis to disregard the recorded entries; disallowance for alleged lack of substantiation is unjustified. Assessed income must be recomputed after removing the fixed-asset additions and allowing the claimed deduction.

Penalty for furnishing inaccurate particulars is not sustainable where a revenue-expenditure claim is fully disclosed, its genuineness is undisputed, and disallowance follows only from its characterisation as capital expenditure. A bona fide claim under Section 37, involving a legal difference over capital-versus-revenue treatment, does not by itself establish inaccurate particulars under Section 271(1)(c). The penalty was therefore not sustainable.

Section 12A(1)(ba)'s requirement to file a return within the due date under Section 139(1) as a condition for exemption under Section 11 applies prospectively from Assessment Year 2018-19. It does not govern Assessment Year 2017-18. Accordingly, delayed filing, including filing in response to a reassessment notice, cannot by itself defeat a Section 11 exemption claim for that earlier year. The exemption remains available in accordance with law despite belated return filing.

Electronic transmission of a reassessment notice must occur within the statutory limitation period: generation and digital signature before the deadline do not constitute delivery where the electronic record is sent afterwards. Under the electronic-service framework, delayed transmission renders the foundational notice time-barred and the consequential reassessment void. Because revisionary jurisdiction requires a valid assessment order, revision cannot operate on a non est reassessment order.

Additional evidence filed in appeal should not be rejected solely because Rule 46A was not expressly invoked. Where an addition arose from non-compliance during assessment, substance should prevail over a procedural omission to cite the rule. Fair opportunity requires admission of the evidence, reconsideration of the matter, and readjudication after hearing.

The presumption for impounded documents attaches to the person from whose possession or control they were found; additions against a firm or other persons require independent corroborative evidence. Diary entries predating the firm, absence of commercial production, prior assessment in the individual's hands, and implausible agreement terms did not support additions for unexplained cash, land investment, or purchases. Where entries identify separate contributors, only the identified individual's cash contribution may be assessed, subject to telescoping against the finally determined share of unaccounted income. Separate land-payment and purchase additions were deleted as duplicative or unsupported. Residual unexplained jewellery and cash additions remained sustainable because their sources were not established.

Notice under section 148 issued after expiry of the surviving period available under the applicable reassessment framework and extended limitation regime invalidates the reopening and any revision founded on it. For section 263, reassessment initiated specifically to examine an alleged on-money payment constitutes enquiry where that examination is evidenced by the order under section 148A(d). Mere absence of discussion of the issue in the reassessment order does not, by itself, establish that the order is erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue under Explanation 2 to section 263. Revisionary action cannot rest on a time-barred reopening or an unsubstantiated allegation of lack of enquiry.

Reassessment beyond the normal limitation under Sections 148 and 149 requires assessee-specific material showing escaped income at the prescribed threshold, represented by a qualifying asset, expenditure, or book entry. Pooled seized data relating to group entities, without entity-wise attribution or net-income analysis, does not meet those jurisdictional conditions. Where material is seized from another person, bypassing Section 148A also requires compliance with applicable statutory requirements. Approval under Section 151 must be independently considered rather than mechanical. Reopening after prior proceedings were closed on the same material requires fresh information; otherwise, the renewed notice lacks jurisdiction.