Insights & Analysis
Statement First, Cross-Examination Second: CESTAT Allahabad Invokes Section 9D of the Central Excise Act to Quash a ₹2.39 Crore Cenvat Credit Fraud Demand Against Rathi Steel and Power
A Ghaziabad steel manufacturer was one of 68 noticees accused of availing Cenvat credit on cenvatable invoices issued without any actual supply of copper scrap. The Customs, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal set aside the ₹2.39 crore demand confirmed against it, holding that the adjudicating authority relied on third-party statements without following Section 9D of the Central Excise Act's mandatory procedure for admitting them in evidence, treated a co-noticee's settlement under an amnesty scheme as proof against unrelated parties, and confirmed the demand through generic findings that never engaged the appellant's own case.
14 min readVoluntary Deposit, Not a Time-Barred Demand: Delhi High Court Upholds a Customs Settlement Commission's Appropriation of Duty Beyond the Section 28 Limitation Period
An importer of confectionery items voluntarily deposited over ₹85 lakh during a DRI investigation into under-invoicing, and its proprietor admitted the full differential duty liability and asked that the deposit be adjusted against it. When the Settlement Commission later appropriated part of that deposit towards duty for a period beyond the Customs Act's five-year extended limitation period, the importer cried foul. The Delhi High Court dismissed the challenge, holding that Section 28 bars the Revenue's power to raise a fresh demand after the limitation period, but does not bar the appropriation of an amount the importer had already, voluntarily and without qualification, admitted was owed and asked to have adjusted.
12 min readSupreme Court: A Second Appeal Cannot Trade an Upheld Specific Performance Decree for Cash
In Sobaran Singh v. Gordhan Singh, the Supreme Court reversed a High Court order that had upheld a trial court's findings on a decades-old specific performance suit, yet substituted the decreed sale with a large cash payment 'to maintain equity.' The Court restored the original 1979 decree, holding that once the buyer's readiness and willingness stood affirmed and the sale had already been executed through the court in 1979, there was no discretionary room left to convert the transaction into compensation four and a half decades later, particularly where the buyer had been in continuous possession throughout.
13 min readDelhi High Court: Absence From a Property Is Not Ouster — Partition Decreed on Admissions
In a first appeal from a preliminary decree of partition, the Delhi High Court held that a co-owner who had not lived in a family flat since 1993 remained a co-owner in constructive possession, because the party in physical occupation never pleaded facts showing hostile, exclusive possession to his knowledge. The court also held the partition suit was within limitation, since the cause of action accrued only when the co-owner's share was expressly denied in 2018 — and that these questions could be resolved on admitted pleadings under Order XII Rule 6 of the Code of Civil Procedure, without a trial.
13 min readRepresenting the Client or Running the Business: Delhi High Court Upholds GST Search of a Tax Advocate's Office Over an Advocate-Client Privilege Challenge
GST intelligence officers searched the office of a practising tax advocate and seized his firm's CPU after alleging he was not merely representing a gaming company under investigation but was himself a beneficiary of an offshore gambling operation generating an alleged ₹365.68 crore GST liability. The Delhi High Court dismissed the advocate's challenge to the search, holding that Section 67(2) of the CGST Act was validly invoked, that advocate-client privilege protects client communications rather than an advocate's own conduct, and that safeguards over third-party client data — not invalidation of the search — were the appropriate remedy.
14 min readSame Assessee, Same Period, Different Subject Matter: Delhi High Court Applies Armour Security's Two-Fold Test to Uphold Parallel DGGI Proceedings Over State ITC Action
An exporter facing a combined demand of over seven crore rupees from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence argued that the State GST department's earlier, separate proceedings on the same input tax credit and period barred the DGGI's case under Section 6(2)(b) of the CGST Act. The Delhi High Court disagreed, applying the Supreme Court's Armour Security two-fold test to hold that a general ineligible-ITC assessment and a fraud investigation into fictitious suppliers are not the 'same subject matter' merely because both concern ITC claimed in overlapping years, and relegated the challenge, along with an objection to a multi-year consolidated notice, to the statutory appeal.
13 min readMadhya Pradesh High Court: Once a Specific Performance Suit Is Filed, a Buyer's Good Faith No Longer Matters
Deciding two connected first appeals from a decree for specific performance of an agreement to sell agricultural land near Indore, the Madhya Pradesh High Court applied the Supreme Court's recent reconciliation of Section 19(b) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 with Section 52 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, holding that a sale executed after suit is filed is bound by the doctrine of lis pendens regardless of the buyer's good faith. The Court went on to correct a structural defect in the trial court's decree: a pendente lite transferee is not simply written out of the title by declaring the sale deed void, but must be directed to join the original vendor in executing the conveyance to the decree-holder.
14 min readDelhi High Court: A Partition Suit Cannot Outrun a Registered Sale to a Bona Fide Purchaser
Deciding a first appeal under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the Delhi High Court upheld the dismissal of a partition suit filed by two sons against their stepmother, half-brother and a third-party purchaser over a Delhi plot. The sons could not rebut the presumption of validity attaching to a registered power of attorney and a registered agreement to sell, and having admittedly parted with possession, could not maintain a suit for partition without also seeking possession — a procedural threshold the case treats as inseparable from any substantive claim to family property.
13 min readState Registration Is No Shield: Delhi High Court Applies Armour Security to Uphold DGGI's Cross-Empowerment in a Multi-State Works-Contract ITC Chain
A works-contract subcontractor holding three separate GST registrations faced a combined demand of over five and a half crore rupees across three states, arising from an alleged fake-invoicing chain traced through its sub-subcontractor. The Delhi High Court rejected its challenge to DGGI's jurisdiction over State-registered taxpayers and to the Delhi North Commissionerate's authority to adjudicate, relegating the reasons-adequacy and Circular 171 defences to the Section 107 appeal, while extending interim protection to file it.
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