Extended limitation for service-tax demands requires suppression of material facts. Service-tax registration, payment of tax on commission receipts, filing of ST-3 returns, and recording reimbursement particulars in profit and loss accounts indicate disclosure rather than suppression. Pending litigation over the taxability of reimbursements further negates a basis for alleging deliberate non-disclosure. Consequently, invoking the extended period is unsustainable where the relevant reimbursement details were available from statutory returns and accounts, rendering the demand time-barred.

Free home delivery of ready-to-eat food is treated as outdoor catering for the period before July 2012 and as a declared service thereafter, because delivery to the customer's requested location and time contains a significant service element. Service tax liability therefore applies within the normal limitation period. Extended limitation and consequential penalty do not apply where the taxpayer was registered, filed statutory returns, paid service tax, and the relevant facts emerged from maintained records, absent evidence of deliberate suppression intended to evade tax.

NSDC-approved training-partner exemption under paragraph 9A(iv) requires the service provider itself to be an NSDC-approved training partner providing services in relation to specified programmes; an authorised learning centre serving such a partner, without direct NSDC approval or tripartite authorisation, does not qualify. Education forming part of a university degree curriculum leading to a legally recognised qualification remains exempt under Section 66D(l)(ii) even when delivered through distance learning by a non-university provider. Extended limitation requires fraud, wilful misstatement, or suppression with intent to evade; absent these elements, only non-exempt skill-development services within the normal limitation period remain taxable.

Cum-tax treatment applies where service tax was unpaid and no evidence shows that it was separately recovered from service recipients. Consideration for taxable services must then be treated as inclusive of tax, requiring recomputation of tax liability, interest and mandatory penalty on a cum-tax basis. For 2017-18, contractual amounts may form the basis of a best-judgment service-tax determination where the assessee has not furnished income-tax returns, balance sheets or alternative figures showing services rendered and consideration received. That contractual-value basis remains valid, but the resulting liability must be recalculated after extending cum-tax benefit.

Extended limitation and penalties require evidence of conscious, deliberate suppression or misstatement intended to evade service tax. A governmental lessor's bona fide understanding of taxability, without positive evidence of mala fide intent, does not justify extended-period demands or penal action; related extended-period demands and penalties are consequently unsustainable. Vacant land was excluded from taxable renting of immovable property before 1 July 2010, but leasing or licensing vacant land for construction of business or commercial structures became taxable thereafter. A one-time lease premium or salami constitutes consideration for leasing immovable property and forms part of the taxable value, unlike recurring rent only.

Discretionary writ relief under Article 226 may be declined where a litigant relies on altered or unreliable material to explain delay in filing a statutory appeal. An undated medical certificate contained an insertion in its neat copy that was absent from the original, indicating an attempt to mislead the Court. The clean-hands requirement governs invocation of writ jurisdiction, and rejection of the delayed statutory appeal was therefore not disturbed.

Under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, attachment may be confirmed on prima facie material showing a person's involvement in receiving, handling, layering or concealing proceeds of crime; final criminal liability remains for trial. An unsubstantiated loan explanation, later inclusion in the ECIR, absence of an initial direct money trail, or reliance partly on a co-accused's statement does not defeat attachment where independent electronic, documentary and circumstantial material supports the laundering nexus. Where directly derived proceeds are unavailable, untraceable, laundered or held outside India, property of equivalent value may be attached, including property acquired before the criminal activity.

Money-laundering proceedings require alleged proceeds of crime to be linked to criminal activity relating to a scheduled offence attributable to the person concerned. Where predicate proceedings against that person are quashed entirely because the investigating agency lacked jurisdiction, and the quashing remains operative, there is no subsisting predicate offence or corresponding proceeds-of-crime nexus. The Enforcement Directorate cannot independently preserve the predicate prosecution or rely on proceedings against other accused to establish the missing individual nexus. Proceedings under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act therefore cannot continue against that person.

Prolonged custody exceeding one year may, in an appropriate money-laundering prosecution, outweigh the statutory twin conditions governing bail. Serious allegations of impersonation, forgery and extortion, and material insufficient to satisfy the usual bail restrictions, do not preclude consideration of mitigating factors. Bail in the predicate-offence proceedings, pending investigation, and reliance on material that may fall outside the predicate offence can support release. Any grant of bail should include safeguards to secure attendance, protect witnesses and preserve the progressing trial.

Penalty under Section 50 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 is subject to a maximum limit but must be fixed through reasonable, judicial and reasoned discretion proportionate to the contravention. Retaining the original penalty after excluding two remittance forms already adjudicated and recognising RBI write-off of another, without explaining the unchanged quantum, failed that standard. The penalty for non-realisation of export proceeds was therefore set aside as unreasoned and disproportionate and replaced with a lower penalty.

Continuing failure by a corporate debtor to deliver possession or refund amounts may constitute a subsisting default for limitation purposes under a financial creditor's Section 7 insolvency application. Where a revival scheme acknowledges the creditor's claim, that acknowledgment supports extension of limitation despite the three-year period ordinarily applicable from default. An unworkable revival scheme that has been set aside, and pending winding-up proceedings, do not independently bar Section 7 proceedings; insolvency resolution may continue where debt and default are established.

Accused persons already on bail must ordinarily receive summons to appear before a transferee Special Court before coercive process is used. Transfer of a complaint to the Special Court does not by itself justify immediate issuance of an arrest warrant where the accused have had no opportunity to appear before that court. Lawful coercive measures may be adopted only subsequently, if necessary to secure attendance. An arrest warrant issued without prior service of summons in these circumstances is illegal and liable to be set aside.

Bail assessment in an alleged gold-smuggling prosecution requires each accused to be assessed only for gold recovered from that person's possession. The aggregate value of capsules recovered from different persons cannot be attributed to every accused to determine punishment, and Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code does not permit such aggregation. Extended custody, absence of any further request for investigative custody, sufficient opportunity to identify alleged organisers, and the applicant's local residence and employment supported release on conditions designed to protect the investigation and trial.

Bail pending investigation into alleged evasion of customs and anti-dumping duty through invalid certificates of origin was granted subject to conditions. The investigation was principally documentary, relevant records had been seized, and later supplier communications and revised origin documents could be verified while requiring the applicant's attendance. The risk of independent evidence tampering was not supported, particularly as another person connected with the import work was in custody. Bail required execution of a bond, cooperation with the investigation, attendance when called, passport surrender, and restrictions on foreign travel.

Parts designed and manufactured solely or principally for a particular machine are classified with that machine under Note 2 to Section XVI, unless a specified exclusion applies. Pins, bolts, diaphragms, valves, gaskets, seals, bushes, liners and allied items made exclusively for GEHO slurry pumps, with no independent function or use in other machinery, qualify as pump parts rather than residual material-based goods. In the absence of evidence of dual use or classification as interchangeable parts of general use, the declared classification as relevant pump and valve parts prevails, rendering consequential differential duty, interest, confiscation, fine and penalties unsustainable.

Lending an Importer-Exporter Code for consideration breaches the Foreign Trade Policy requirement that imports and exports use the code allotted to the concerned person and may attract customs penalty under Section 112. Penal liability must nevertheless remain proportionate to the established contravention; use of a different code in the offending import establishes no nexus with earlier lending. Penalty under Section 114AA is inapplicable where the subsequent import was filed under the importing entity's own code and is unconnected with the lender's earlier transactions.

Customs undervaluation allegations require authenticated electronic records and verified supplier invoices; electronic data must meet statutory certification and procedural safeguards, while unsigned, unattested invoices require proof of origin and authenticity. Transaction value may be rejected only upon substantiated reasons to doubt it and compliance with prescribed valuation procedures; contemporaneous import values should be examined where relevant. Duty attaches to the importer filing the bill of entry, so liabilities of separate IEC-holding entities cannot be recovered from another proprietor merely alleged to be a proxy. Confiscation and redemption fine require goods to remain available for confiscation. Absent these conditions, valuation-based duty, interest and penalty consequences lack legal foundation.

Pre-import condition breaches attract IGST only for imports shown, through bill-of-entry-wise and raw-material-wise import-export correlation, to have preceded the corresponding exports. Subsequent discharge of export obligations or export-obligation-discharge certificates does not itself preserve unconditional IGST exemption where an actual breach is established; the liability must be regularised under the applicable procedure. Authorisation-wise quantification is insufficient, particularly where valid clubbing of advance authorisations must be given effect. Interest, confiscation, redemption fine and penalty require substantive statutory authority and are not sustainable for the described IGST regularisation during the relevant period, especially where authorisation particulars were disclosed.

Under the Customs Act, a legal ground based on test reports already included in the assessment record is not additional evidence. Prior acceptance of a proposed assessment or waiver of personal hearing does not preclude a statutory appeal where omission of the ground was neither wilful nor unreasonable. Iron ore Fe content for export-duty classification and assessment must be calculated on a Wet Metric Ton basis, reflecting total goods weight including moisture. Contractual pricing on a Dry Metric Ton basis does not govern tariff classification or export-duty rates. DMT-based assessment requires fresh determination of Fe percentage, classification, value and duty using test reports, moisture content and assessment records.

Written acceptance of enhanced customs valuation under Section 17(5) dispenses only with the requirement for a speaking reassessment order; it does not waive the importer's statutory right to appeal or challenge rejection of the declared transaction value. Rejection requires compliance with Section 14 and Rule 12(2), including written grounds for doubting the declared value. General consent letters referring to contemporaneous imports, without comparable data on quantity, quality and timing, do not prove voluntary abandonment of valuation rights. Statutory appeal rights cannot be defeated by acquiescence, making reassessment and appellate rejection founded solely on written acceptance unsustainable.