Delhi High Court Allows Delhi Airport To Approach Adjudicating Authority For ITC Claim In Light Of Safari Retreats

The Delhi High Court has disposed of two connected writ petitions, including one filed by Delhi International Airport Ltd, challenging the denial of input tax credit (ITC) under Section 17(5)(c) and (d) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.The division bench of Justices Anil Kshetrapal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar granted it liberty to approach the Adjudicating Authority for consideration of its claim in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Chief Commissioner of Central Goods and...

CESTAT Delhi Holds Consultancy To Single Client Cannot Be Treated As Intermediary Services

The Customs, Excise, and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), New Delhi, has recently held that consultancy services provided directly to a service recipient cannot be classified as intermediary services merely because the consultancy helps the recipient deal with third parties.The bench comprising Judicial Member Binu Tamta and Technical Member P.V. Subba Rao observed that an intermediary arrangement requires three parties. The intermediary must facilitate or arrange the main supply between...

Service Tax Payment Can't Create Liability Where Tax Is Not Payable: CESTAT Delhi

The Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), Delhi has held that merely because a taxpayer wrongly collects or pays service tax, it does not make an otherwise non-taxable activity liable to tax.“However, the fact that some amount was collected and deposited does not create a charge of service tax and no service tax will become payable and no exemption which is otherwise available will become unavailable,” the tribunal observed.The bench comprising Judicial Member Binu Tamta...

ITAT Delhi Deletes Over ₹7,800 Crore Tax Adjustments Against Samsung India

The Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has deleted about ₹3,605 crore in adjustments for AY 2016-17 and ₹4,211 crore for AY 2017-18 in the case of Samsung India Electronics Pvt. Ltd. The tribunal also excluded Verizon Communications Pvt. Ltd. as a comparable for Samsung India's networking segment and upheld its use of the Berry Ratio for benchmarking distribution transactions.The bench comprising Judicial Member Anubhav Sharma and Accountant Member Naveen Chandra found Verizon...

Advocates Acting As Insolvency Professionals Must Register Under GST, Pay Under Forward Charge: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court on Thursday held that advocates rendering services as insolvency professionals must obtain GST registration, ruling that such services are subject to the forward charge mechanism and not the reverse charge mechanism applicable to legal services provided by advocates. A bench of Justices Pratibha M. Singh and Shail Jain passed the judgment on a petition filed by advocate Kanwal Chaudhary challenging an Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) order dated March 9,...

Himachal Pradesh High Court Quashes Electricity Duty On Self-Generated Electricity Used For Captive Consumption

The Himachal Pradesh High Court has quashed Section 3(1)(xi) of the Himachal Pradesh Electricity (Duty) Act, 2009, to the extent that it prescribed electricity duty on electricity generated by consumers through diesel generating sets or any other mode for captive or standby use.The court held that the charging provision under Section 3 of the 2009 Act does not cover electricity generated by a consumer from its own source for its own consumption.The Division Bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur...

Punjab and Haryana High Court Sets Aside IT Assessment Order Against UCWeb Mobile During Pendency Of DRP Proceedings

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has recently set aside the final assessment order passed against UCWeb Mobile Private Ltd. while its objections to the draft assessment order were pending before the Dispute Resolution Panel (DRP).The court held that the assessment violated the procedure prescribed under Section 144C of the Income-tax Act, which requires the Assessing Officer to pass the final assessment in conformity with directions issued by the DRP after considering the assessee's...

Revenue Cannot Levy Service Tax Through Notional Apportionment Of Indivisible Turnkey Contracts: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has held that the Revenue cannot artificially split an indivisible turnkey contract and levy service tax on a notional portion of the total consideration towards installation and commissioning. Such segregation was not permitted under the law during the relevant period, from July 2003 to April 2006.A Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar made the observation while upholding a CESTAT order that had set aside service tax demands against Diebold...

Supreme Court Notice On GST Department Plea Against HC Order Quashing Arrest Over Failure To Serve Grounds

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice on the GST Department's plea challenging an Allahabad High Court order that set aside the remand of a person arrested under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The High Court had found that the grounds of arrest were not shown to have been served before his production before the Magistrate. The High Court also found that the arrest memo did not mention any annexure containing the grounds of arrest. The court relied on the January 13, 2025...

R&D Deduction Claim Cannot Be Rejected As Delayed When Audit Report Was Filed On Time: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court has ruled that an application for the DSIR's report on eligible in-house R&D expenditure (Form 3CL) cannot be treated as delayed where the company had submitted the required audit report (Form 3CLA) within the deadline for filing its income tax return.“It must therefore be accepted that uploading of Form 3CLA by an Assessee to its e-filing account on the website of the Income Tax Department, on or before the due date of filing of the Return of Income, satisfies the...

Customs Law Does Not Recognise 'Substantial Compliance' In Matters Of Warehousing: CESTAT Hyderabad

The Customs, Excise, and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), Hyderabad, has recently ruled that Customs law does not recognise the concept of “substantial compliance” in warehousing. It rejected Oswal Minerals Ltd.'s argument that its imported manganese ore substantially remained under the custody of the same warehouse operator.“Customs law does not recognise the concept of “substantial compliance” in matters concerning warehousing. What the statute requires is deposit of the imported goods...

S.147A Income Tax Act Challenge: Delhi High Court Orders Status Quo On Recovery, Penalty Proceedings

The Delhi High Court has directed that the status quo be maintained on recovery and penalty proceedings against two assessees who have challenged the constitutional validity of the newly inserted Section 147A of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which retrospectively clarifies the role of the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) in reassessment proceedings.The division bench of Justices Dinesh Mehta and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta passed the direction while allowing applications filed by Neena Wadhwa and...