Where assessee was the Managing Director of ITNL when all the 10 alleged bogus contracts were awarded therefore, assessee’s knowledge and involvement in the alleged awarding of contracts could not be ruled out. Indeed, the Investigating Officer had interrogated the assessee twice, however looking at the gravity of the offence and the aspect of pending investigation relating to finding out the real beneficiaries of the siphoned off money, this Court found itself in disagreement with the submission that no more interrogation in custody was required. Accordingly, the assessee’s bail application was dismissed on account of involvement of huge money laundering .
SC held that Ola and Uber did not facilitate cartelization or anti-competitive practices between drivers as the drivers were independent individuals who acted independently of each other, therefore, section 3 of the CCI Act would not apply.
Assessee had no liability to pay service tax on the commission received in convertible foreign currency as the only requirement after the amendment in rule 3 (2) of the Export Service Rules 2005 was that the service recipient should be situated outside India and consideration should be received in foreign currency which both are satisfied.
Registration of FIR against assessee for offence under Section 56 of the Act of 2005 was bad, as no FIR for the said non-cognizable offence could be registered and for offence under Section 56, only complaint could be filed by the specified authority / person named in Section 60(a)/(b), that too cognizance can be taken by the jurisdictional criminal court only if previous sanction has already been granted by the competent authority under Section 59 of the Act of 2005.
Minimum guarantee amount which was paid by the distributor for acquiring the exhibition rights of a movie was a fixed expenditure for the distributor that was paid to producers irrespective of the fact whether the film generated a profit or incurs losses. Hence, the payments made by assessee did not fall under the term Royalty and did not attract the provisions of TDS.
Provision for software expenses could not be disallowed by considering it as contingent liability as assessee was required to make provision for all known liabilities and losses as per accounting standards prescribed by ICAI and also by the Central Government under the Income Tax Act even though the amount could not be determined with certainty.
Prosecution launched by the Deputy Director for alleged non disclosure of cash by assessee and his wife was not maintainable and premature one. Merely because the power vested to lodge a complaint by the Deputy Director every case the prosecution could not be launched merely on the conferment of such power without any material. If AO came to the conclusion in a proceedings under Section 153 of the Income Tax Act, it was open to the Department to initiate penal action as per law.
Since the petition against Enforcement Directorate towards claiming of interest under section 42(3) of FERA towards seized travellers cheques was filed more than 9 years after receiving the rupee equivalent of UK Pounds 1800 without providing of any reasonable explanation for the delay, therefore, the same was liable to be rejected solely on the ground of laches.
Money laundering is a serious economic offence and serious threat to the national economy and national interest and, these offences are committed with cool calculation with the motive of personal gain regardless of the consequences on the society.
Since the authorities had detained the goods without affecting seizure and they had exceeded the time limit for detention of the goods even if it was construed to be a case of seizure therefore, authorities were directed to forthwith release the imported goods of assessee covered by the bill of entry on completion of the necessary legal formalities.
