Writ jurisdiction against an ex parte GST assessment is generally unavailable where an effective statutory appeal exists and the taxpayer offers no cogent explanation for delayed challenge after communication of the assessment order. The writ petition was dismissed for availability of the appellate remedy and laches, while preserving liberty to file an appeal with an application for condonation of delay.

Pre-deposit for service-tax appeals under the legacy regime must satisfy section 35F of the Central Excise Act, as applied through the Finance Act. Although section 35F does not prescribe a payment mode, the CBIC instruction of 28 October 2022 requires payment through the dedicated CBIC-GST Integrated portal and treats Form GST DRC-03 payments as invalid. That instruction operates prospectively, allowing DRC-03 deposits made before its issue to be accepted. Reversal of input tax credit through Form GSTR-3B by debiting the electronic credit ledger after that date does not constitute a valid pre-deposit; payment must be made through the prescribed portal.

Withdrawal from bank accounts frozen under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act cannot be separately permitted by the High Court after directing the affected party to pursue the statutory remedy before the Adjudicating Authority. Questions concerning the freezing order, including any request to access frozen funds for employees' salaries, fall for determination by the Adjudicating Authority. The High Court's discretionary permission to withdraw funds for salary payments was set aside, and the Adjudicating Authority must determine the proceedings independently and in accordance with law.

Special Additional Duty refund rights linked to subsequent sale of imported goods and payment of sales tax or VAT cannot be restricted by a one-year limitation introduced only through an exemption notification. Although the Customs Act provides a refund mechanism, the notification-based limitation was treated as an impermissible restriction on a substantive refund right without statutory amendment. Consequently, a refund claim could not be rejected as time-barred solely because it was filed beyond one year from payment of Special Additional Duty, and no substantial question of law arose against the refund grant.

Documented share purchase and sale transactions supported by banking records, demat holdings, contract notes, recognised stock exchange sales, securities transaction tax and bank receipt of consideration support the genuineness of long-term capital gains. Sale proceeds should not be treated as unexplained cash credit merely on investigation material or an inference that price movements were inconsistent with company financials, where no independent enquiry disproves the evidence. Reliance on third-party material without examining relevant persons or allowing cross-examination is insufficient, particularly where the investor is not implicated in alleged price manipulation. Long-term capital gains exemption may consequently remain available.

Common approval under section 153D for multiple assessment years does not validly authorise assessments under section 153A read with section 143(3). The additional legal ground challenging the statutory approval was admitted because it went to the root of the assessments and could be decided from the existing record. A single combined approval obtained for all relevant years was treated as invalid, vitiating the assessments. Consequently, the impugned assessments were quashed in favour of the assessee.

Rectification under section 154 is confined to mistakes apparent from the record. Delayed deposit of employees' EPF and ESI contributions could not be disallowed through rectification merely by applying a subsequently stated legal position, because that did not constitute an apparent mistake. The EPF and ESI disallowances were therefore unsustainable under section 154, resulting in relief for the assessee.

Cash deposits could not be treated as unexplained merely because they exceeded reported turnover when VAT collected on sales was excluded under the exclusive accounting method; including that VAT reconciled the difference, requiring deletion of the addition. Specified bank note deposits during demonetisation were also not taxable as unexplained where they were recorded as business receipts in the cash book and the books of account had not been rejected; that addition was deleted. Assessed income required recomputation after both additions were removed.

Business expense disallowances may fail where audited accounts, prior-year expenditure ratios and evidence of business use remain unrebutted. Contractual liquidated damages for delay in completing performance may be deductible where they compensate for contractual default rather than impose a penalty. Cash paid directly to site workers at subcontractors' request, then adjusted against subcontractor accounts, may be justified by commercial expediency. Loan-credit additions may be unsustainable where permanent account numbers, confirmations and lenders' bank statements adequately establish the creditors. These principles support deletion of estimated expense disallowances, cash-payment disallowances and unsupported loan-credit additions.

Unpaid GST liability remains subject to disallowance under Section 43B even where GST is accounted for under the exclusive method and is not routed through the profit and loss account. Both inclusive and exclusive GST accounting methods are recognised and should not produce different tax treatment. Section 145 and applicable income computation standards require the GST component to be included in turnover; therefore, non-routing through the profit and loss account does not prevent disallowance. Where the unpaid liability is apparent from the tax auditor's reporting, it may be adjusted while processing the return under Section 143(1). Deduction may be claimed in the year of actual payment, subject to law.

Charitable exemption for a general-public-utility entity requires an activity-wise assessment of whether exhibition, trade-promotion and related activities are undertaken in furtherance of its charitable objects, whether any services for consideration are commercial in character, and whether relevant receipts remain within the applicable quantitative limit. Meetings, information dissemination and events may advance charitable objects, while specialised services require closer scrutiny. Membership status alone does not determine commercial character or mutuality treatment of receipts, including interest and non-member receipts. The Assessing Officer must reconsider both exemption and mutuality after giving the assessee an adequate hearing.

Employees' PF and ESI contributions paid one day after the statutory due date were treated as allowable where the banking portal was non-functional on the due date. Portal unavailability was established by evidence, and payment was made on the immediately following day. The delay arose from circumstances beyond the assessee's control and was regarded as bona fide rather than attributable to the assessee. Accordingly, disallowance of the contributions was unsustainable and the related addition was deleted.

Reassessment initiated more than four years after the relevant assessment year, following an original assessment under Section 143(3), requires recorded reasons showing that income escaped assessment because of the assessee's failure to disclose fully and truly all material facts. Alleged information regarding accommodation entries does not remove that jurisdictional requirement. Where the recorded reasons neither identify nor allege such disclosure failure, reassessment is invalid for non-compliance with the first proviso to Section 147.

Reassessment based on recorded reasons alleging undisclosed bogus long-term capital gains was invalid because the relevant share transactions produced short-term capital gains already disclosed in the original return. The factual premise for reopening was therefore incorrect. Reassessment at the originally returned income further showed that no income had escaped assessment. The reassessment order was quashed in favour of the assessee.

Unsecured-loan additions cannot rest solely on non-production of lenders' bank statements where lender identity and loan confirmations are established through PAN details and confirmations, without independent enquiry into the transactions. The addition was therefore deleted. For alleged bogus purchases in a civil-contract business, site-based procurement from local suppliers and operational urgency partly supported the transactions, but ledger discrepancies and some supplier denials justified an estimated disallowance. The purchase disallowance was restricted to 10% of the disputed amount, rather than disallowing the entire purchases.

Business income represented by cash deposits accepted as turnover should be estimated at 2% rather than 8%, reflecting the market-linked nature of the grain trade and margins below 1% accepted in subsequent years. Treating the deposits as unexplained money was displaced once they were accepted as business turnover. Income must be recomputed by applying the 2% profit rate, resulting in relief for the assessee.

Salary expenditure inadvertently included in partners' salary in the return requires verification against the financial statements and partners' capital accounts. Those records indicated that only part of the claimed amount was credited as partners' salary, while the balance was stated to be staff salary. Where verification establishes that the balance was paid to employees other than partners, it is allowable as staff salary expenditure.

Registry expenses borne by a real-estate developer on flat sales completed at stamp-valuation authority values are allowable business expenditure where the full sale consideration recorded in the sale deeds has been received. Deduction of those expenses does not reduce the sale value for stamp-duty valuation purposes and therefore does not trigger deemed-sale-consideration treatment under Section 43CA. As expenditure incurred wholly and exclusively for business, registry expenses are deductible under Section 37(1), and the related addition is deleted.

Unexplained investment in purchase of a plot was assessed under the Income-tax Act after the investment source was treated as unproved. An affidavit from the lender confirming an advance, evidence of substantial agricultural landholdings, and the taxpayer's regular income-tax compliance supported acceptance of the explained sources to a substantial extent. The addition was consequently restricted to the portion of investment remaining unexplained, while the balance addition was deleted.

Cash deposits during the demonetisation period were treated as unexplained money because no assessment response was filed. The assessee had disclosed presumptive income from construction-material trading, maintained financial statements, and had sales turnover accepted by the Commercial Tax Officer. Once that disclosed computation was accepted, no further income could be taxed from the cash deposits. The addition for unexplained cash deposits was therefore deleted.