Pending Supreme Court proceedings concerning a settlement plan required the Department to establish its tax claim within those proceedings. The claim had not been extinguished, compromised, or adjudicated through the settlement process, while asset attachment and deposit of sale proceeds protected the Department's interests. Consequently, the admitted substantial questions in the tax appeals remained unanswered, and the appeals were disposed of with liberty to seek revival if necessary.

Government securities held by banks, including securities retained to maturity, constitute stock-in-trade. Such securities must be valued at cost or market value, whichever is lower, so any diminution on revaluation is allowable. Actual bad-debt write-offs concerning non-rural advances are separately deductible and need not be reduced by a provision for bad and doubtful debts relating to rural advances. The restriction on write-off deductions prevents double deduction only for rural advances, preserving full deductions for non-rural bad debts.

Condonation of delay requires a timely application supported by a satisfactory explanation establishing sufficient cause. An appeal filed after prolonged delay, without a condonation application, may be treated as time-barred and defective, particularly where repeated opportunities to cure defects remain unused. A plea of lack of notice or ex parte disposal does not establish sufficient cause where directors filed adjournment applications and contemporaneous records show knowledge of the proceedings. On these facts, refusal to condone delay and dismissal of the appeal as time-barred and defective were justified.

Assessment for Financial Year 2021-22 cannot rest on cash-deposit and fund-transfer entries recorded in Financial Year 2022-23 unless their relevance to the assessment year is properly determined. Credits dated 4 to 21 May 2022 were identified in the revision record as pertaining to Assessment Year 2022-23. Failure to address the objection concerning this temporal mismatch in revision undermines the validity of the addition and revisional action, as the objection goes to the root of the assessment.

Section 144C draft-assessment procedure is addressed in relation to Dispute Resolution Panel jurisdiction, changes of forum, and the validity consequences of issuing a final assessment order without a draft order. The discussion also distinguishes section 144B from section 144C and considers assessment-completion limitation under section 153, the impact of remand on limitation, and courts' capacity to direct fresh assessments.

Validity of reassessment proceedings was challenged on limitation grounds. The Special Leave Petition was filed after an 840-day delay that remained unsatisfactorily explained. No good ground existed to interfere with the High Court's order. The key legal points concern the limitation applicable to reassessment challenges and the requirement to satisfactorily explain substantial delay when seeking appellate intervention.

Input tax credit on services attributable to the fresh issue component of an initial public offering is available where the net proceeds are used in the course or furtherance of business. Business furtherance includes activities supporting, facilitating, promoting or advancing business, including capital raising for expansion, working capital, repayment of borrowings and general corporate purposes. Such fresh-issue expenses are not treated as blocked credits. Credit attributable to an offer for sale by existing shareholders is unavailable because the sale proceeds do not accrue to the company and the related expenditure is not incurred in furtherance of its business.

Vehicle-registration mismatch in an e-way bill raises whether a completely incorrect number is substantive non-compliance attracting a detention penalty or a bona fide clerical error. One view treats a total mismatch as beyond concessions for minor errors and supports an unrebutted presumption of intent to evade tax. The opposing view treats it as typographical where invoices and other particulars of the goods are genuine and no material establishes mens rea. The difference has been referred for nomination of another member; no final determination on the penalty has occurred.

E-invoicing requirements apply to notified registered persons, requiring an invoice with IRN/QR code before goods commence movement. Failure to generate the e-invoice at that stage is a procedural lapse, but a transit penalty is not justified where the tax invoice, e-way bill and lorry receipt accurately identify the parties, goods, value and tax liability. Where no discrepancy, concealment, falsification, undervaluation or intent to evade tax is established and the later e-invoice corresponds to the same transaction, the penal consequence under Section 129 is unsustainable.

Input tax credit eligibility, including any exception to blocked credit, requires contemporaneous evidence proving the factual basis and business nexus; invoices, payments, and assertions alone are insufficient. Section 17(5) requires identification of the applicable blocked-credit clause and cannot operate as a general ground to disallow expenditure. Vehicle, construction, renovation, gift, catering, and personal travel claims remain inadmissible where statutory restrictions apply or business use, non-capitalisation, asset nexus, or an exception is unproved. Lawfully leviable cess separately charged forms part of taxable value. Interest on inadmissible credit is confined to wrongful availment and utilisation. Penalty is not automatic, but applies under Section 73 to tax legally sustained, subject to recomputation.

Retrospective Section 16(5) preserves input tax credit for specified financial years when taken through a Section 39 return filed by the prescribed deadline, notwithstanding the former Section 16(4) time limit. GSTR-3B constitutes a Section 39 return, and availment through it differs from later utilisation of credit. Errors or non-carry-forward in GSTR-9 or GSTR-9C do not by themselves negate credit already availed. Section 75(7) prevents a limitation-based demand from being sustained on fresh Section 16(2) grounds absent from the show-cause notice. The special rectification procedure does not displace substantive entitlement, while interest and penalty require underlying wrongful availment or liability.

Section 74(1) of the CGST Act applies only where tax non-payment or short-payment results from fraud, wilful misstatement, or suppression of facts intended to evade tax. Delayed GST payment, belated GSTR-3B filing, or short payment of interest does not independently establish these conditions. A show-cause notice must set out foundational facts and supporting material for an allegation of deliberate tax evasion; merely repeating statutory language is insufficient. Where tax and interest were paid before issuance of the notice and no material demonstrated intent to evade tax, proceedings under Section 74(1) were unsustainable.

Tax invoices must be issued before or at removal of goods for supply, and e-way bills must be generated before movement begins. Persons in charge of conveyances must carry both documents during transit. Movement without these mandatory records contravenes GST requirements and attracts detention and penalty under Section 129. Generating and producing an invoice and e-way bill about seven hours after interception does not retrospectively validate the earlier undocumented movement. The absence of required transit documents creates a rebuttable presumption of intent to evade tax; an unsupported explanation, particularly where repeated conduct is recorded, does not displace it. Penalty under Section 129 therefore remains applicable.

Misdescription of higher-value copper scrap as aluminium scrap in contemporaneous invoices and e-way bills, coupled with concealment of separately identifiable copper, supports a rebuttable inference of intent to evade tax on a preponderance of probabilities. The inference is not displaced by an explanation of labourers' error where the mismatch is not a mere classification, HSN, or typographical discrepancy. Under Section 129, transit documents generated after interception cannot retrospectively validate earlier movement or cure missing matching documentation; resulting tax and penalty consequences apply.

Accumulated input tax credit arising from higher-taxed packing materials used to market bulk sulphur in customised packets falls within the inverted duty refund mechanism under Section 54(3)(ii) of the CGST Act. Packing materials constitute business inputs even where the principal input and outward supply of sulphur attract the same GST rate. Where packing materials bear a higher GST rate than the outward supply, the resulting accumulated credit is refundable. Departmental circulars concerning identical input and output supplies cannot impose restrictions not contained in the statute, as implementation directions cannot curtail a statutory refund entitlement.

Refund of unutilised input tax credit under the inverted duty structure is available where higher-taxed packing materials are used to make bulk sulphur marketable as customised packaged sulphur, even though bulk and packaged sulphur bear the same GST rate. Such packing materials qualify as inputs, and accumulated credit arises because their tax rate exceeds that on the output supply. The restriction concerning identical input and output goods does not apply where accumulation is not caused by a rate reduction on the same goods. Instructions issued to ensure uniform GST implementation cannot curtail a statutory refund entitlement.

Section 67(2) permits seizure only of goods liable to confiscation and documents, books or things useful or relevant to GST proceedings. Cash and securities are excluded from the statutory definition of goods, while money is separately defined. Applying literal interpretation, the residual expression "things" cannot extend seizure powers to money or securities that the statute treats distinctly. GST search powers therefore do not authorise seizure of cash or securities merely because they are found during a search; any seizure power must have a proximate nexus with GST proceedings. Money seized without such authority must be returned or refunded.

Fresh GST registration should be assessed independently where the applicant's earlier registration was cancelled and the statutory period for filing the related returns has expired without a notified extension. Section 37 permits extension of the period for furnishing outward-supply details only through notification. Requiring returns that can no longer be furnished under the statutory framework imposes an impossible compliance condition. Non-filing of those time-barred returns should therefore not itself justify rejection, subject to fulfilment of other applicable registration requirements.

Input tax credit is conditional on actual payment of tax on the supply to the Government under Section 16(2)(c) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, read with Section 41. The conditions for credit operate together, so a recipient cannot retain credit where the supplier has not remitted the charged tax. Supplier insolvency and an approved resolution plan do not remove the recipient's independent obligation to meet the actual-payment condition. Input tax credit is therefore unavailable where the supplier's tax payment has not reached the Government.

A summary appellate rejection of a belated GST-registration appeal solely on limitation does not adjudicate the underlying cancellation. The original cancellation order therefore does not merge into the appellate rejection and remains open to constitutional writ review under Articles 226 and 227. Where registration was cancelled for failure to answer a show-cause notice, bona fide reasons, unavoidable circumstances, and sufficient cause for non-response may justify a further opportunity. Restoration of registration may be made subject to prescribed return-filing and tax-payment obligations.