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By: - Raj Jaggi
GST writ jurisdiction is generally reserved for a patent jurisdictional defect, breach of natural justice, constitutional challenge, or ineffective remedy. Where a challenge requires examination of notices, chronology, subject matter, evidence, periods, and statutory application, appeal under Section 107 of the CGST Act is ordinarily appropriate. Section 6(2)(b) prevents duplicate Central and State GST proceedings only on the same subject matter; common taxpayer, premises, search, or financial years alone are insufficient. Search-related action and a later Section 74 tax-demand adjudication may have distinct legal foundations and scopes.
By: - YAGAY and SUN
DGFT has issued a precautionary advisory requiring heightened vigilance in dealings with M/s Legoy Powersports, Thimphu, and M/s Druk A-Z Store, Thimphu. It is not a prohibition or blanket ban, but identifies potential counterparty and payment risks requiring enhanced scrutiny. Exporters and importers should verify credentials, contractual terms, payment arrangements, banking details, delivery commitments and documentation, and adopt appropriate payment security and contractual safeguards. Banks, Export Promotion Councils, Regional Authorities, ECGC and other stakeholders should assess transaction risks and promptly report adverse experiences, payment issues or contractual disputes.
By: - YAGAY and SUN
Customs origin determines the legal economic nationality of goods and governs eligibility for preferential tariffs and other customs measures. Preferential claims require application of the relevant trade agreement's Rules of Origin, including wholly obtained status, substantial transformation, Product-Specific Rules, Regional Value Content, tariff shifts and direct-consignment conditions. Minimal operations generally do not confer origin. A valid Certificate of Origin and supporting manufacturing, cost, shipping and transit records are central to verification. Importers claiming preference ordinarily bear the burden of proving eligibility, while classification and valuation must be considered because they may affect origin criteria and value-content calculations.
By: - YAGAY and SUN
GST registration establishes a taxable person's legal identity and enables tax collection, compliant invoicing, eligible input tax credit claims, return filing and participation in taxable supply chains. Liability depends on taxable activity, aggregate turnover, supply characteristics, taxpayer category, statutory exceptions and applicable conditions. Compulsory registration may apply regardless of turnover to specified persons, while registration is State-specific. Registration requires application, verification and supporting records, followed by continuing obligations for returns, invoicing, tax payment, credit management, record maintenance and prompt amendments. Suspension, cancellation and revocation operate subject to applicable compliance requirements and due process.
By: - YAGAY and SUN
ISO 20121:2024 establishes a Sustainable Event Management System framework for managing environmental, social and economic impacts across event planning, operations, procurement and post-event evaluation. Organisations identify event context, stakeholder expectations, impacts, risks and compliance obligations; adopt a sustainability policy; set measurable objectives; implement operational controls; communicate sustainability expectations; and monitor performance. The framework addresses resource efficiency, waste, transport, responsible procurement, accessibility, health and safety and community impacts, using reviews, feedback and corrective actions to support continual improvement.
By: - YAGAY and SUN
ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018 establishes requirements for an IT Service Management System that enables organisations to plan, deliver, manage, monitor and continually improve IT-enabled services. It requires defined service-management processes, customer focus, risk-based thinking and Plan-Do-Check-Act improvement. Core controls cover organisational context, leadership, planning, service portfolios, service levels, incidents, problems, changes, configuration, supplier relationships, performance evaluation and continual improvement. Implementation includes gap analysis, scope definition, process development, operational controls, training, internal audit, management review and correction of nonconformities.
Pre-institution mediation and attachment before judgment require distinct conditions; failed mediation permits consideration of protective asset attachment.
Pre-institution mediation requirements under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act operate independently from the conditions for attachment before judgment under Order XXXVIII Rule 5 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Proof that defendants intend to remove themselves or their assets from the court's jurisdiction concerns the attachment application and cannot determine whether exemption from mediation should be granted. Where parties have already undergone mediation without resolving the dispute, no mediation-related barrier remains to considering attachment before judgment. The Commercial Court may decide the attachment application expeditiously and number the commercial suit if otherwise in order.
Vicarious liability in cheque dishonour requires specific allegations of responsibility; former directors who resigned before cheque issuance cannot be prosecuted.
Vicarious criminal liability for cheque-dishonour offences by a company requires specific allegations that the former director was in charge of and responsible for the company's business when the offence occurred, or that it resulted from that person's consent, connivance or neglect. Directorship alone and general assertions do not satisfy this requirement. Where statutory corporate records establish resignation before the cheques were issued and dishonoured, and the former director neither signed the cheques nor had a pleaded role in the alleged offence, continuation of proceedings is vexatious and constitutes an abuse of process. Summoning orders and complaints against that former director are liable to be quashed.
Retrospective ratification validates resignation acceptance, while withdrawal remains subject to the appointing authority's reasoned statutory discretion.
Competent authority ratification can retrospectively validate an initially unauthorised but otherwise lawful acceptance of resignation. Where the governing statute makes resignation effective upon acceptance by the appointing authority, communication of acceptance and expiry of the notice period are not conditions of legal effectiveness; the notice period governs actual relieving. Withdrawal before relieving remains subject to the competent authority's reasoned discretion under the applicable framework. An employee who sought waiver of notice, accepted separation-related benefits and acted upon the completed separation cannot later rely on a technical defect in acceptance. A reasoned refusal based on the employee's stated intention to leave for another institution is not open to substitution through judicial review absent unlawfulness, mala fides or perversity.
Rectification jurisdiction cannot recall a final revision order to secure merits rehearing on allegedly undecided issues.
Rectification under section 72 of the Gujarat Sales Tax Act, 1969 is confined to correcting a mistake of fact apparent from the record. It cannot be used to obtain merits adjudication of additional issues allegedly left undecided or to restore a revision application already finally disposed of. Recalling the final revision order exceeded the limited rectification jurisdiction, making the restoration and consequential rectification orders impermissible. Any challenge to the original final order must be pursued through appropriate independent proceedings.
VAT and sales tax litigation reached the Supreme Court without disclosed underlying statutory or factual issues.
VAT and sales tax proceedings concerned a challenge to a High Court order arising from a writ petition. The dispute reached the Supreme Court through a civil appeal by a company and another party against the State and other respondents. The available material identifies the subject matter as indirect tax litigation under the CST, VAT and sales tax framework, without setting out the underlying tax issue, statutory interpretation, factual controversy, or substantive legal principle involved.
Outward freight credit from the factory qualified as input service before 31 March 2008, with disclosed claims protected from extended limitation.
Rule 2(l) of the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004, before 31 March 2008 covered services used directly or indirectly for clearance of final products from the place of removal. Where the factory was the place of removal, service tax paid on outward freight from the factory qualified for CENVAT credit under the pre-amendment definition of input service. Extended limitation could not apply where credit particulars were disclosed in ER-1 returns and no suppression or misstatement was established. A dispute involving interpretation of the credit rules, without non-disclosure, did not support a time-barred demand.
Cenvat credit survives unregistered head-office invoices when telephone services were received and used without revenue loss.
Cenvat credit on telephone services remains available where invoices are issued in the head office's name, despite the head office not being registered as an Input Service Distributor, if the assessee received and used the services. Non-registration is treated as a procedural irregularity during the relevant period where proportionate credit distribution was not required and the lapse caused neither undue benefit nor revenue loss. Credit cannot be denied solely because the invoices name an unregistered head office.
Discharge certificate processing under the Sabka Vishwas Scheme requires manual verification where payment recorded in SVLDRS-3 is undisputed.
Under the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019, payment of the differential duty determined in Form SVLDRS-3 was established through the relevant declarations and bank statement and remained undisputed. Where issuance of a discharge certificate requires procedural verification despite such payment, the declaration requires manual examination and processing. The Commissioner must manually examine and process the request for issuance of the discharge certificate within four weeks.
Cenvat credit for factory-made capital goods survives where end-use is proven and statutory disclosure defeats extended limitation.
Cenvat credit is admissible for structural steel items, welding electrodes and oxygen demonstrably used within the factory to manufacture, repair or maintain capital goods and machinery, rather than to construct sheds, buildings, foundations or support structures. Chartered Engineer certificates substantiating this end-use support eligibility, and the exclusion for construction-related structural materials does not apply. Credit recorded in RG23A records and disclosed through ER-1 returns, amid divergent views on eligibility, reflects a bona fide belief and does not establish suppression. The extended limitation period is therefore unavailable, rendering the demand, consequential interest and penalty unsustainable.
Extended limitation requires wilful intent to evade duty; departmental knowledge of valuation facts bars time-barred excise recovery.
Excise valuation of body-built vehicles includes the 10% addition embedded in the chassis value determined under Rule 8, because that amount forms part of the intermediate chassis cost used in the completed vehicle. The exclusion for anticipated post-manufacture sale profit and post-clearance expenses does not permit exclusion of this embedded addition. Extended limitation for duty recovery requires fraud, collusion, wilful misstatement, wilful suppression, or contravention with intent to evade duty. Where the Department already knows the material valuation facts, an assessee's omission does not constitute wilful suppression; recovery beyond the normal limitation period is therefore barred.
Pre-deposit compliance cannot be revisited after remand where the original appeal predates the mandatory deposit regime.
Pre-deposit requirements did not apply to an appeal filed before the mandatory 7.5% regime took effect. Where proceedings returned for a second round after remand and the required deposit had already been made in the original appellate proceedings, the first appellate authority should decide the appeal on merits rather than reconsider pre-deposit. Rejection solely for alleged non-compliance with pre-deposit was unsustainable, requiring merits adjudication without re-examination of the deposit requirement.
Small-service-provider exemption applies where nil Form 26AS establishes no preceding-year taxable-service turnover and current-year receipts remain below threshold.
Small-service-provider exemption for FY 2013-2014 applied because aggregate taxable-service value in the preceding financial year did not exceed the prescribed threshold. Nil-payment Form 26AS for FY 2012-2013 reasonably established nil preceding-year taxable-service turnover, particularly as receipts were determined using Form 26AS. As taxable-service value in FY 2013-2014 was below the applicable threshold, the service-tax demand, interest and penalties were unsustainable.
Service-tax reconciliation failures invalidate works contract and GTA demands, while audit discrepancies cannot justify extended limitation or penalties.
Service-tax demands for Works Contract Service and Goods Transport Agency service require a reasoned reconciliation of taxable value, statutory returns, books of account, payment challans and CENVAT credit records; discrepancies between balance-sheet figures and ST-3 returns alone do not establish short-payment. Composite contracts involving transfer of property in goods and services require assessment under Works Contract Service after its introduction. Reverse-charge liability for GTA service does not dispense with verification of payments, appropriations, adjustments and recoverable balance. Extended limitation under the proviso to Section 73(1) requires evidence of fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression with intent to evade tax; audit discrepancies alone are insufficient. Failure to meet these requirements renders the demand, consequential interest and penalties unsustainable.
Composite catering exemption applies to the overall arrangement, while disclosed interpretational disputes cannot trigger extended limitation.
Composite catering arrangements qualify for the relevant service-tax exemption when assessed by their overall commercial character; beverages and refreshments do not by themselves negate a substantial and satisfying meal. Composite contracts may contain separate sale and service elements, so service tax cannot extend to the value of food and beverages transferred as goods where VAT has been paid without identifying the taxable service component. Extended limitation is unavailable where registered taxpayers disclosed agreements, invoices, returns and VAT records, and the dispute concerns notification interpretation without suppression, wilful misstatement or intent to evade. Consequently, no service-tax liability, interest or penalties survive.