Ministry of Finance, Government of India has commissioned an in-depth and fresh study, engaging three top national level institutions for estimation of unaccounted income and wealth held within and outside India. This study will bring out the nature of activities that encourage money laundering and its ramifications on national security. The study has already commenced in March, 2011 and is expected to be completed within a period of 18 months.
KASTURI & SONS LTD, CHENNAI Versus UNION OF INDIA & others (Madras High Court)- Dated: 24-02-2011 – Service Tax – Based on the impugned circular of the second respondent, the third respondent is insisting for payment of service tax on maintenance charges payable to the company in Denmark and therefore, the impugned circular is challenged on various grounds including that the same is ultra vires section 83 of the Finance Act, 1994 and section 37B of the Central Excise Act, 1944, that when the section itself takes away the maintenance of software from the purview of service tax, the second respondent cannot by virtue of such circular impose service tax, that it is ultra vires Article 265 of the Constitution of India, since it seeks to impose service tax through a circular which is not permissible in law and therefore, it affect Articles 19(1)(g) and 14 of the Constitution of India.
The unit in question is situated at Nashik, Maharashtra within the jurisdiction of this Court. The said unit was initially administered by the LTU at Delhi and it is only as an afterthought the revenue is contending that the unit in question would not be governed by the LTU scheme for the period where there was no specific approval. If mere forwarding of the consent letter entitles the large tax payer to avail the benefits of the LTU scheme then the benefits of the LTU cannot be denied where the consent is impliedly given by submitting ER-1 returns regularly. The show cause noticed is issued by the LTU, Delhi to the petitioner’s unit at Nashik. Thus, in the facts of the present case, it cannot be said that this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the Writ Petition filed by the petitioner to challenge the show cause notice issued by the LTU, Delhi to the unit of the petitioner set up at Nashik.
Consider the enormity of the data-over 8 and a half lac companies, over hundred online services offered to them, over sixty e-forms. hundreds of data fields and crores of pages of pdf attachments. If this speaks about something. it is the challenge before the Regulator, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), which is humongous. While MCA is responsible for providing convenient and transparent registry and e-filing services to one set of stakeholders, which is the corporate and the professionals, it is also expected to protect the interest of millions of investors from every single instance of attempted fraud or financial irregularity by firms.
Commerce Ministry has asked exporters to ‘keep their fingers crossed’ on their demand for extension of the DEPB, a tax neutralisation scheme on exports, beyond June 30. With the Revenue Department making it clear that the window of the Duty Entitlement Pass Book (DEPB) would close from June end, the exporters are lobbying hard with both the Commerce and Finance ministries for continuation of the sops.
Facing shortage of experienced hand, the government has relaxed the criteria for selection of Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of public sector banks , a decision that would make several executive directors eligible for elevation as CMD. Under the new criteria, a bank executive director (ED) with a minimum experience of 6 months would also be eligible to become CMDs.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India”s services sector, which contribute over 50 per cent in the country”s economic growth, declined by 22.5 per cent to USD 3.4 billion in 2010-11, according to the industry ministry”s latest data. The services sector (financial and non-financial services) had attracted FDI worth USD 4.39 billion during 2009-10.
Mukesh Ambani has got company of at least 29 fellow corporate executives, including four from his own group Reliance Industries , in terms of annual salaries running into crores of rupees for the latest fiscal. These include JSW Energy’s Sajjan Jindal, Hindustan Construction’s Ajit Gulabchand, Raymond’s Gautam Hari Singhania, ICICI Bank’s Chanda Kochhar, Axis Bank’s Shikha Sharma, as also Infosys’ S Gopalakrishnan and S D Shibulal.
Sebi has begun a probe into possible use of fake bids for artificially pushing up the subscription levels in numerous IPOs over past few years, with a modus-operandi similar to that in Vaswani Industries case. After halting Vaswani Industries’ listing earlier this month on suspicion of irregularities in its IPO bidding, the market watchdog last week ordered a detailed probe into the matter, which would be completed by the next month.
Technological advancements in recent decades have given us a digital platform for financial information. However, ‘digital’ does not mean ‘compatible’ because each software application generates the financial document in different format (pdf, xls, html, doc. etc), which unfortunately cannot be read directly by another software application. Such challenges have resulted in inconsistencies in the financial data as well as inordinate delay in discharging the regulatory roles of the Ministry.
