GST registration requires the registering authority to verify whether the applicant has legal possession of the business premises, without conducting a detailed adjudication of landlord-tenant disputes over the scope of lease rights. Lease documents permitting showroom operations, co-lessees' authorisation for a managing partner to form and operate a partnership firm, and landlords' own proceedings indicating the partner's possession may prima facie establish the firm's legal possession for registration purposes. Where a registration application lacks required supporting documents, a fresh application may be filed with those documents and must be considered in accordance with these principles within the stipulated period.

Additional input tax credit arising in a construction project must be passed to eligible buyers through commensurate price reductions under the anti-profiteering framework. Buyer-wise verification may establish that substantial credit has been passed on while identifying outstanding benefit due to remaining recipients. Unpassed benefit attracts interest from the date of supply because recipients were deprived of the monetary benefit; it cannot generally be withheld against disputed consideration where a separate consumer dispute remains pending. Continuing failure to pass on benefit after the penalty provision took effect can also attract a penalty, subject to the statutory relief available where the profiteered amount is deposited within the prescribed period.

CBIC monetary-limit instructions bind central tax officers, not the Tribunal. Where a composite order covers multiple demands, the total amount involved must be considered; appeals concerning recurring issues or statutory interpretation fall outside the monetary-limit bar. Duty credit scrips became exempt supplies in 2017, but their exclusion from aggregate exempt supplies for proportionate input tax credit reversal applies prospectively from 5 July 2022. The later amendment conferred a prospective benefit and did not retrospectively alter earlier reversal obligations. Extended demand proceedings require material showing fraud, wilful misstatement or deliberate suppression intended to evade tax; mere non-declaration is insufficient. Absent such material, tax liability must be determined under the ordinary demand procedure after hearing the taxpayer.

A draft assessment order cannot support a tax demand or penalty proceedings because a demand requires a final assessment determining the sum payable. Where an order's heading, operative language, proposed disallowance, objection mechanism and express non-issuance of demand consistently identify it as a draft, it cannot be treated as final merely as an uploading error. The statutory curative provision does not validate this substantive defect, particularly where no corrective or final assessment order follows. Draft-assessment procedure is also unavailable where no variation in international transactions is proposed, leaving no competence to issue a draft order. The draft order and consequential demand and penalty notices were set aside.

Revision of block assessment under section 263 could not revisit additions concerning claimed unaccounted expenditure, asset investments and petrol-pump income after those additions had been adjudicated in appellate proceedings and the Tribunal's decision had attained finality following dismissal of Revenue appeals. Revisionary proceedings on those matters were therefore set aside. Regarding tanker acquisition and operating income, concurrent factual findings after record verification established no material showing unaccounted income. With no legal infirmity in those findings, deletion of the tanker-related addition was sustained and the Revenue's appeals were dismissed.

Service permanent establishment analysis under the India-USA DTAA requires services to be furnished through employees or other personnel and excludes services covered as royalties or fees for included services. Stewardship, oversight and other auxiliary activities do not establish a service PE unless the nature of training, administrative, news-gathering or sales-support functions is shown to exceed auxiliary activity or to constitute technical or consultancy services. A distributor operating independently on a principal-to-principal basis, without authority to conclude contracts, maintain delivery stock or habitually secure orders, does not constitute a dependent agent PE. Where intercompany dealings are at arm's length, no further profit is attributable to an alleged PE.

Section 56(2)(viib) share-premium additions may not arise where the issue price of unquoted shares exceeds the Rule 11UA value by no more than 10%. The CBDT's curative safe-harbour amendment treats the issue price within that permissible variation as fair market value. Applying this safe harbour, an addition for excess share premium within the 10% range was treated as unsustainable and deleted.

SaaS subscription receipts from Indian customers for a standard, non-customised software development kit and dashboard facility did not constitute fees for included services under Article 12(4) of the India-USA DTAA. Customers integrated the product and generated reports independently, while the provider retained its algorithms, source code and processes; use of technology did not make technical knowledge available for independent post-subscription use. Incidental account management, support and demonstrations did not change the transaction's predominant automated character. The related additions were deleted for both assessment years. Tax deducted at source credit required Assessing Officer verification before grant, and the challenge to penalty initiation for under-reporting was premature.

Penalty under section 271AAB requires undisclosed income as exhaustively defined in its Explanation; a surrender made during a search does not alone establish that statutory character. Land and other advances represent application or outflow of funds rather than an unrecorded income inflow, and deeming provisions for unexplained investments cannot be automatically applied to this self-contained penal provision. Uncorroborated diary notings without verifiable particulars cannot independently prove real transactions or undisclosed income. As the amount was accepted as current-year business income without a requisite finding of undisclosed income, deletion of the penalty on the surrendered advances was sustained.

Revision of an assessment is warranted where the Assessing Officer fails to apply the statutory deeming provisions to additions for undisclosed investment and unexplained cash, omits the applicable special tax rate, and does not consider penalty proceedings. An order is erroneous when based on incorrect facts or law, made without due application of mind, or contrary to natural justice. It is prejudicial to revenue where lawful tax is not realised. The revisional authority may set aside such an assessment, direct further inquiry, and require reassessment under the correct provisions after providing an opportunity of being heard.

Protective assessment of seized jewellery requires independent evidence that the person in physical possession is its actual or beneficial owner where the same jewellery has been substantively assessed in the hands of a company claiming ownership. Physical possession and inability to prove another person's ownership do not displace the Revenue's substantive treatment when the individual consistently denies ownership and no positive material establishes ownership. Failure to pursue a first appeal does not cure the absence of evidence or transform a protective addition into a substantive charge. The protective addition for unexplained jewellery was deleted, and consequential interest was to be recomputed.

Donor-wise records containing names, PANs, addresses and supporting material established the identity of donors to a charitable trust. Undisputed remand-report records could not be displaced merely because donors did not comply with notices or because no further independent verification occurred. Evidence also showed that corpus contributions were intended for the trust's corpus. Voluntary and corpus donations from identified donors therefore could not be treated as anonymous donations, and the related additions were deleted. The challenge to the scrutiny notice was not pressed.

An approved resolution plan binds governmental and statutory authorities and operates on a clean-slate basis for tax proceedings relating to pre-approval periods. Where plan clauses expressly extinguish and require withdrawal of pending tax proceedings concerning the corporate debtor, affiliates and subsidiaries, income-tax jurisdiction cannot be exercised inconsistently with the plan. A legal plea based on subsequent undisputed approval of the plan may be admitted in appellate proceedings where it goes to the root of the matter and requires no fresh factual enquiry. Income-tax appeals for the relevant pre-approval assessment years cannot continue; the taxpayer's appeals succeed on this preliminary issue, the Revenue's appeals fail, and merits issues remain open.

Penalty immunity under the Direct Tax Vivad Se Vishwas Scheme does not extend to an independent penalty for failure to obtain a statutory tax audit merely because related quantum additions were settled. The penalty issue remains separately examinable. For futures and options transactions, tax-audit applicability depends on evidence establishing the transaction nature and turnover computation under the ICAI Guidance Note. Where the record does not show whether transactions were futures and options or delivery-based, the tax-audit requirement and consequential penalty require factual verification by the Assessing Officer after the taxpayer provides supporting particulars.

Section 54GB requires an investee company to have been incorporated in India within the stipulated period to qualify as an eligible company for capital-gains exemption. Commencement of business or manufacturing, acquisition of plant and machinery, or MSME registration cannot substitute for the legal incorporation date. A dormant company's later commencement of operations does not change its incorporation date under company law. Although incentive provisions may be construed liberally where ambiguous, an unambiguous exemption condition applies strictly. Investment in a company incorporated before the prescribed period therefore does not qualify for section 54GB exemption.

Transactional Net Margin Method was treated as the most appropriate method for benchmarking purchases by a medical-equipment distributor performing substantial post-import functions, including configuration, integration, installation, training, warranty and maintenance support. The Resale Price Method was considered unsuitable where resale involved significant value addition and risk assumption, and the transfer-pricing adjustment based on that method was deleted. Comparable companies require verification where related-party transactions may exceed the prescribed filter. Verification was also directed to prevent double taxation where a sundry balance written back had already been offered to tax and was again added during return processing. The appeal was partly allowed, with the remaining issues remanded for fresh determination.

Condonation of delay in customs appeals requires a bona fide, satisfactory explanation covering the entire period of delay. Although "sufficient cause" receives a liberal, justice-oriented construction, that approach does not excuse gross negligence, lack of diligence or prolonged inaction. Participation through counsel, communication of the adjudication order to counsel, departmental efforts to serve the order, and failure to enquire about the outcome for nearly three years may support refusal of condonation; later receipt of an order copy does not explain earlier inaction. Under the Customs Act, High Court review does not permit reappreciation of such factual findings absent perversity, disregard of material evidence or legal error.

Fire-damaged motor cars brought with a vessel for ship-breaking may be classified as scrap where extensive damage has destroyed their identity and utility as motor vehicles, and salvage arrangements restrict disposal to demolition. Such goods are not restricted commercial or passenger vehicles, usable second-hand goods, or prohibited imports; confiscation for import without a licence is therefore not attracted. Unloading requires physical removal of cargo from a vessel; berthing at a notified ship-breaking port is not unloading. Where no unauthorised removal or other statutory contravention is established, neither the scrap cargo nor the vessel carrying it is liable to confiscation, and consequential penalties are unsustainable.

Post-export conversion of free shipping bills into EPCG shipping bills cannot be rejected solely for delay where contemporaneous documentary evidence supports the export. The three-month limitation prescribed by a Board Circular was treated as inconsistent with Section 149, while the one-year period under the 2022 Regulations applies prospectively and does not govern earlier exports. Failure to state EPCG authorisation details in the original free shipping bills is a curable procedural lapse when export duty payment records, invoices and bank realisation documents establish the goods exported and receipt of export proceeds. Conversion must be processed after verification of that evidence.

Interest on delayed customs refunds of excess duty following reassessment commences after three months from receipt of the refund application, rather than from the later reassessment or refund order. Where the importer pursued reassessment and refund but Revenue delayed action for several years, the delay is attributable to Revenue. Interest was therefore payable from 20.02.2019 until the refund date. The applicable rate was 12 per cent, not 6 per cent, because the refund was withheld through prolonged inaction. The balance interest was required to be paid within eight weeks.