The High Court refused bail in a GST case involving allegations of operating multiple non-existent firms to pass on fake ITC worth over ₹315 crore, holding that economic offences warrant a strict approach.
The Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s quashing of a reassessment notice, holding that reopening based only on existing records was invalid and refusing to condone a 426-day delay.
The ITAT held that income addition based solely on Form 26AS differences cannot survive when books are audited and no defects are found.
ITAT ruled that unverified electronic records recovered from a third party do not constitute reliable evidence of cash payments. Additions based solely on such data were deleted.
The Assessing Officer accepted multiple loan transactions but treated only one as unexplained. The tribunal held that selective rejection without consistent reasoning was unsustainable.
The Tribunal held that a penalty order issued after the death of the assessee is void ab initio. Since notices were not served on legal heirs, the penalty under section 271AAC was set aside.
The Tribunal held that additions based solely on third-party GST information and suspicion cannot be sustained without independent investigation, restricting estimation to 1% of sales.
It was ruled that once books are accepted, expenses supported by ledgers, vouchers, and bank payments cannot be disallowed on suspicion. Ad-hoc estimation without rejecting books was held invalid.
It was ruled that under-reported revenue cannot be inferred solely from service tax data when no defects are found in regularly maintained books. Income must be assessed on real income principles supported by enquiry and evidence.
The Court held that misclassification of ITC between CGST/SGST and IGST does not result in excess claim if the credit is otherwise admissible. Once the error is rectified through annual returns, no demand can survive.
