A subsequent adjudication order under section 74 for FY 2017-18 cannot be sustained where it was passed without reference to an earlier adjudication order that had culminated in an appellate order. The consequential Form GST DRC-13 recovery notice issued to the bank also fails because it depends on the invalid subsequent order. The subsequent adjudication order and recovery notice were quashed, and the writ petition was partly allowed.

GST appellate authorities must adjudicate statutory refund appeals on merits and cannot dismiss them solely for an appellant's non-appearance. Appellate orders must also provide reasons supporting their conclusions. The High Court set aside an order dismissing a refund appeal for non-prosecution because it contained neither merits-based adjudication nor reasons. The refund appeal was remanded to the Appellate Authority for disposal in accordance with law, with all merits left open.

Statutory limitation for GST appeals under section 107 bound the appellate authority, but the High Court condoned delay where circumstances beyond the taxpayer's control prevented timely filing and refusal of merits review would cause grave injury and prejudice. The appellate order dismissing the appeal as time-barred was set aside. The GST appeal concerning alleged wrongful availment of input tax credit was permitted to be filed and decided on merits without limitation objection, subject to compliance with the filing period stipulated by the High Court.

Electronic service of GST notices and assessment orders through a taxpayer's web-portal profile constitutes valid and sufficient service under the CGST Act. A taxpayer remains responsible for monitoring the portal, communicating hearing dates and uploaded orders to its engaged lawyer, and responding to departmental communications. Execution of a vakalathnama does not transfer that monitoring obligation or establish denial of opportunity. Where no material demonstrates a lapse by the lawyer, non-participation caused by failure to check the portal does not justify interference with assessment orders or consequential recovery proceedings. The writ petition was dismissed.

Compounding charges under the 2024 Guidelines must be calculated by reference to actual service of the prosecution complaint where charge enhancement depends on application timing. The requirement that a complaint be served within 15 days supports a fair and prompt opportunity to seek compounding, including for pending applications. Accordingly, the 12-month period for the enhanced rate runs from service on the accused, not the complaint's filing date. Applications filed within 12 months of service attract the normal rate, without the 50% enhancement; charges must be recomputed accordingly.

Political-donation deduction claims transparently disclosed in a return do not constitute misreporting merely because the deduction is disallowed. Misreporting requires material showing false evidence, suppression of facts, or deliberate misrepresentation. Statutory immunity from under-reporting penalties applies where the substantive conditions for immunity are satisfied. Applying these principles, the penalty imposed for alleged misreporting in relation to the political-donation deduction was deleted.

Charitable status of sports-promotion activities is not lost merely because an organisation receives sponsorship, entry, or professional-entry fees. Tournament organisation may be integral to promoting women's golf where receipts are substantially applied to tournaments and player-development activities and no independent commercial activity, substantial commercial margin, or profit motive is established. Renewal of charitable registration is confined to whether charitable objects continue and activities are genuine and aligned with those objects; it is not a reassessment of each receipt's taxability. Unchanged objects and activities require cogent reasons for departure from an accepted position. Registration was directed to be granted, and the consequential refusal of donation approval could not stand.

Misreporting of income under section 270A is not established merely because a donation deduction claimed under section 80GGC was disclosed in the return and later disallowed or withdrawn in a reassessment return. Misreporting requires material indicating deliberate furnishing of inaccurate particulars, false evidence, suppression, or misrepresentation. Where the taxpayer fulfils the substantive conditions for immunity under section 270AA(1), penalty protection applies. On these principles, the penalty imposed for misreporting was deleted and the appeal was allowed.

ITAT treated notional interest on overdue receivables from associated enterprises as unwarranted where the taxpayer was debt-free, resulting in deletion of the transfer-pricing adjustment. It also treated employee stock option plan costs as allowable business expenditure rather than capital expenditure and deleted the corresponding disallowance. The appeal was partly allowed on those grounds.

Retrospective amendments to the Dispute Resolution Panel procedure and assessment-limitation provisions, effective from 1 April 2009, place the final assessment order within the applicable limitation period. Transfer pricing adjustments require consideration of a pending rectification application concerning implementation of Dispute Resolution Panel directions. Software development comparables require reliable contemporaneous information, functional similarity and clear segmental data; entities with mixed functions, absent segmental disclosure or unreliable public information are unsuitable. For IT-enabled services, comparability depends on the relevant-year operating segment and service profile, while separately reported IT-enabled service.....

Chapter X confines transfer-pricing adjustments to income arising from international transactions and does not permit enhancement of profits from independent third-party dealings. Manufacturing comparables must be functionally aligned with ready-to-cook instant-noodle production; diversified food, healthcare, personal-care, fast-food and ready-to-eat businesses without suitable segmental data may be unsuitable, whereas convenience-packaged food and instant-mix manufacturing may be comparable. AMP expenditure cannot be treated as an international transaction through the Bright Line Test, which lacks statutory mandate, without material showing an arrangement or understanding with associated enterprises to incur such expenditure on their behalf. Challenges to initiation of penalty proceedings for transfer-pricing documentation failures or under-reporting are premature.

Cost Plus Method based on an internal comparable was treated as the most appropriate method for software development services where identical services were supplied to an independent entity at the same cost-plus mark-up. A traditional pricing method cannot be replaced by a transactional profit method without cogent reasons demonstrating its inadequacy, including proper consideration of the functions, assets and risks analysis. The services were at arm's length and the transfer-pricing adjustment was deleted. No interest adjustment arose on delayed associated-enterprise receivables because interest was not charged on comparable delayed payments by unrelated parties; that adjustment was also deleted.

Telecommunication-business tax treatment covers the timing and scope of deductions, revenue expenditure and transfer-pricing adjustments. Profits eligible for the telecommunication undertaking deduction include receipts with an integral business nexus, while Service from India Scheme incentives are excluded; the initial deduction year depends on when the claim was actually allowed. Annual telecom licence fees are subject to statutory amortisation rather than revenue deduction, whereas spectrum-use charges, ordinary advertising costs, subscriber-fraud losses and certain asset-restoration costs may be revenue expenditure. Automated domestic roaming payments and pre-paid distributor discounts do not require tax deduction at source. Brand-royal.....

Voluntary compensation for diminution in the value of unexercised employee stock options following corporate restructuring is not taxable as a perquisite or salary where it is not contractually or statutorily required, is paid without exercise, allotment, transfer, surrender, cancellation or repurchase of the options, and the employee retains the options. The proximate cause is the restructuring rather than employment. Payer-side tax deduction or Form 16 classification cannot create a tax charge absent satisfaction of the charging provisions. The payment also cannot be treated as profits in lieu of salary merely through an alternative salary provision.

For pre-amendment years, completed but unsold flats held by a builder as stock-in-trade are not subject to notional annual letting value under the general house-property provisions. The specific rule for stock-in-trade property applies prospectively from Assessment Year 2018-19, so its treatment cannot be extended to earlier years. Transfer-pricing adjustments to marketing brokerage require a recognised benchmarking method, reliable comparable or market evidence, and functional analysis of the services performed. Replacing an agreed brokerage rate with a general estimated market rate, without examining marketing, sales-support and customer-related functions, lacks an adequate arm's-length basis.

Partial appellate remand of transfer-pricing comparability issues, without setting aside or cancelling the assessment, requires effect to be given otherwise than through a fresh assessment. Where the remand requires fresh examination and hearing, the limitation period applicable to consequential action applies. A Tribunal remand to the Transfer Pricing Officer does not constitute an Assessing Officer's reference to that officer and therefore does not trigger the additional limitation extension available for such a reference. The consequential assessment, completed after the prescribed deadline, was quashed as time-barred; the remaining transfer-pricing challenges became infructuous.

TNMM benchmarking required exclusion of functionally dissimilar, diversified, and unsegmented companies from the comparable set for manufacturing and engineering-estimation segments. Intra-group support-service charges required fresh verification of evidence showing benefits received and benchmarking under TNMM; the issue was remanded. Business-connected reversals, miscellaneous income, foreign-exchange gains and export incentives were treated as operating income where related expenditure had been treated as operating, increasing the profit level indicator. In the extraordinary COVID-affected year, current-year margins of final comparables were required for comparison rather than weighted averages including normal years. Interest on overdue.....

Suppressed turnover arising from unrecorded sales generated in a disclosed business is assessable only to the embedded profit, absent evidence of unexplained investment or an independent undisclosed activity. Because gross receipts recover both cost and profit, historical profitability provides an objective estimation basis; a moderately higher margin may apply to incremental out-of-books realisation. Profit was estimated at 2%, restricting the turnover addition to that amount; the evidentiary value of individual Excel sheets remained undecided. Cash-payment disallowance requires payment-wise, person-wise and day-wise verification against the prescribed limit, rather than yearly ledger aggregates. Claimed Rule 6DD exceptions require supporting-material verification, and the disallowance was remanded for that limited examination.

Transfer-pricing benchmarking of back-office support services requires comparables with similar functions and risk profiles; specialised engineering, knowledge-process, outsourced, geographically distinct businesses and entities affected by extraordinary events were excluded, while one comparable was retained, requiring recomputation of the adjustment. A low-risk captive service provider is entitled to a working-capital adjustment on furnishing supporting computations. Separate notional interest on associated-enterprise receivables cannot be charged where receivables are already reflected in working-capital adjustment and service pricing, as this duplicates the adjustment. Associated-enterprise cost allocations incurred without mark-up cann.....

Intra-group services closely linked to core business operations may be benchmarked together under TNMM; where facts and the business model remain unchanged, earlier transfer-pricing treatment should be followed despite pending departmental appeals. The related transfer-pricing adjustments and connected branch-office expenditure and depreciation/depletion disallowances were accordingly deleted or allowed. Arm's-length interest on external commercial borrowings required fresh determination by the AO/TPO. Site-restoration costs incurred to discharge a contractual decommissioning obligation were allowable business expenditure despite utilisation of a provision. Refund interest depended on verification of issuance and encashment; TDS credit requ.....