Insights & Analysis
No GST on Assignment of Leasehold Rights: Gujarat High Court Extends a Settled Ratio After the Supreme Court Declines to Interfere
A show-cause notice against Hercules Pigments Pvt. Ltd. was quashed in three paragraphs — the Gujarat High Court simply noted that the Supreme Court had, weeks earlier, declined to interfere with its own ruling that assigning a long-term industrial lease is a transfer of immovable property, not a taxable supply of service. The order is thin, but the line of authority behind it is not: this article traces the reasoning back through Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry v. Union of India and KP Green Engineering Ltd. v. Union of India to work out exactly how far the ratio extends, and where it stops.
14 min readNo Public Purpose Overrides an Elephant Corridor: Karnataka High Court Quashes the Suryanagar Land Acquisition Inside the Bannerghatta Eco-Sensitive Zone
A twelve-year-old land acquisition for a housing layout survived every procedural challenge landowners could throw at it — until the Karnataka High Court held that no public purpose can override the ecological integrity of an elephant corridor abutting a national park.
13 min readBona Fide Buyer, Defaulting Seller: Calcutta High Court Curbs the Mechanical Use of Section 74 to Deny GST Input Tax Credit
A logistics company claimed input tax credit on invoices from a supplier who later stopped filing returns. The department invoked Section 74's fraud-based extended period to raise a Rs. 6.3 crore demand two years after ordinary limitation had run out. The Calcutta High Court quashed the order, applying binding precedent that a buyer's credit cannot be held hostage to a seller's default, and that dressing up an ordinary demand as fraud does not extend the clock.
13 min readRegistered Deeds Are Not Unwound by Afterthought: Gujarat High Court on Part-Payment, Fraud Pleadings and the Fragmentation Act
A seller who takes the cheques, signs the register, and only later complains that the office computer was slow has an uphill pleading burden. This case note works through the Gujarat High Court's reasoning on registered sale deeds, consideration, non est factum and the Fragmentation Act.
13 min readNexus, Not Gross Value: CESTAT Strips Hostel, Mess and Study-Material Fees Out of Commercial Coaching Service Tax
A coaching institute billed tuition, hostel, mess and study-material fees separately for over a decade. The department taxed the lot as one bundle. CESTAT Hyderabad's Final Order works through nine appeals to hold that only what has a real nexus with coaching can be taxed as commercial coaching service — and that repeating a demand the department has already litigated cannot be dressed up as suppression.
14 min readNo Money for Trespass: Himachal Pradesh High Court on Demolition as the Only Remedy for Encroachment, and Why a Second Adverse Possession Plea Failed
A land dispute that had already been to the Himachal Pradesh High Court once returned nearly two decades later, this time asking whether a proven encroacher could keep his house by paying compensation instead, and whether an adverse possession plea already rejected once could be tried again. The Court's answers turn on two doctrines every property litigator should have ready: the remedy for trespass, and the limits issue estoppel places on repeat litigation.
13 min readA Remarried Widow, a Murderer, and a Coparcener's Share: Madras High Court Separates Section 24 from Section 25 of the Hindu Succession Act
A three-decade-old partition dispute forced the Madras High Court to decide whether a coparcener's share reverts to his relatives when his widow remarries, or passes instead to his daughter. The answer turns on a distinction between two very different kinds of disqualification buried in the Hindu Succession Act.
12 min readA Non Obstante Clause That Bites: Supreme Court Upholds Customs Duty on Pilfered Goods Against a Statutory Port Trust
A port trust argued that its custody of imported cargo came from its own constituting statute, so the customs authorities had no power to notify it as a duty-bearing custodian. The Supreme Court draws a careful line between a saving clause and a non obstante clause to reject that argument — while denying the department any actual recovery in the case before it.
13 min readPurchased Together, Divided in Court: What Bajoria v. Bajoria Says About Limitation in Partition Suits Between Co-Owners
Two brothers who built a business together fell out over who owned what. The Bombay High Court's answer to when their clock started running is a compact lesson in how limitation actually works for co-owned property — and why a plaintiff cannot always choose to drop an inconvenient property from a partition suit.
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