On 26 April 2026, a Karnataka High Court division bench held that show-cause notices under Sections 73/74 CGST Act are neither tax-period-specific nor financial-year-specific, allowing the Revenue's intra-court appeals and creating an inter-state split with Bombay and Madras.
On 17 April 2026, a Bombay High Court division bench declined to follow Milroc Good Earth and referred to a Larger Bench the question whether a single show-cause notice under Sections 73/74 CGST Act may span multiple financial years.
On 30 April 2026, a Bombay High Court Division Bench quashed a ₹1,524 crore IGST demand on Tata Sons' satisfaction of the NTT Docomo arbitral-award settlement, holding that enforcement consent terms are not a taxable supply under section 7 CGST and narrowing Entry 5(e) of Schedule II.
A 2-judge bench in October 2021 reversed Delhi HC and held GSTR-3B cannot be rectified beyond the Section 39(9) window — electronic credit ledger finality affirmed.
On 2 March 2006, a three-judge bench disciplined the aspect doctrine, restated the dominant nature test for composite transactions, and set the stage for the GST architecture of composite supply.
A 3-judge bench held in October 2019 that the doctrine of mutuality survives Article 366(29A) for incorporated members' clubs — sales tax and service tax both fail, GST left open.
On 20 August 2015, a two-judge bench held that composite works contracts could not be taxed as services before 1 June 2007 for want of a charging section and a machinery provision.
On 28 January 1999, a three-judge bench struck down Rule 57-F(4-A) of the Central Excise Rules and held that MODVAT credit, once properly taken on receipt of inputs, becomes an indefeasible vested right that subordinate rule-making cannot extinguish.
On 22 July 2022, a two-judge Supreme Court bench directed GSTN to reopen the common portal for two months, allowing every aggrieved taxpayer to file or revise TRAN-1 and TRAN-2 to carry forward pre-GST credit.
On 17 November 1992, a five-judge Constitution Bench fixed the post-46th-Amendment ceiling on State works-contract VAT — value at the time of incorporation, with eight permissible deductions.
The May-June 2026 cycle in Indian GST and indirect-tax law has produced three threads running in parallel — the s.16(2)(c) constitutional ferment now sitting before the Supreme Court, the operational aftermath of the September 2025 rate-rationalisation in the High Courts, and the migration of anti-profiteering jurisdiction from the dissolved NAA to the GSTAT Principal Bench.
On 16 December 1983, a three-judge bench held that HAL's contracts with the Indian Air Force for the servicing and overhauling of aircraft were integral works contracts and not severable into sale-of-goods and labour components, applying the Gannon Dunkerley dominant-nature framework in its last cycle before the 46th Amendment recast the field.
On 12 October 1999, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld State sales tax on the full price of food and drink served at restaurants and bars under Article 366(29A)(f), with no service-element split.
On 26 September 2013, a three-judge bench affirmed K. Raheja and held that pre-completion apartment sales by builders and developers fall within Article 366(29A)(b) as works contracts.
On 1 April 1958, a five-judge Constitution Bench struck down the Madras works-contract sales tax as ultra vires Entry 48 List II — the wall that eventually forced the 46th Constitutional Amendment.
On 10 February 2026, a two-judge bench ordered ₹19.28 crore IGST refund credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund, holding Section 54 CGST Act an exhaustive code and rejecting an 'alien modality' tariff-adjustment route.
On 13 September 2021, a two-judge bench upheld CGST Rule 89(5) and held that refund of unutilised ITC under inverted-duty structure is limited to input goods, excluding input services.
On 19 May 2022, a three-judge bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath struck down the levy of IGST on ocean freight in CIF imports under the Reverse Charge Mechanism — holding that an Indian importer who has already paid IGST on the composite supply of CIF-imported goods cannot be separately charged IGST on the ocean-freight component of the same supply. The judgment is doctrinally significant for a connected reason: the Bench held that recommendations of the GST Council have persuasive value and are not binding on the Union or State Legislatures. A digest of the holdings, the doctrinal architecture, and the refund consequences.
On 19 May 2022, a three-judge bench presided by Justice Uday Umesh Lalit — through a judgment authored by Justice S. Ravindra Bhat — held that the secondment of expatriate employees by overseas group entities of *Northern Operating Systems Pvt. Ltd.* constituted a taxable supply of manpower under the Finance Act 1994, attracting reverse-charge service tax. Substance, not the form of the secondment contract, was held to govern; the employment matrix — payroll, social security, the right of repatriation — remaining with the overseas entity was decisive. The Court denied the Revenue the extended period of limitation under *Section 73*. The judgment has since travelled into the GST era through a wave of *Section 74* notices and a moderating CBIC instruction.
On 3 October 2024, a two-judge bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Sanjay Karol held that the textual choice of 'plant or machinery' — rather than 'plant and machinery' — in *Section 17(5)(d) of the CGST Act, 2017* was deliberate, and that a building could qualify as 'plant' for input-tax-credit purposes if the functionality test was satisfied. The Finance Act 2025 substituted 'and' for 'or' with retrospective effect from 1 July 2017, nullifying the reading; the review petition was dismissed on 20 May 2025; constitutional challenges to the retrospective amendment are now mounting in the High Courts. A digest of the holding, the legislative reversal, and the live constitutional terrain.
The May 2026 cycle in tax law has produced one of the most consequential indirect-tax rulings of the calendar year — the Supreme Court's affirmation of 28 per cent GST on online gaming on full face value in *DGGI v. Gameskraft Technologies* — alongside the first full compliance cycle of the Income-tax Act 2025, the GSTAT 30 June 2026 backlog deadline, the GST 2.0 dual-rate regime in its first full fiscal year, and the practitioner fallout from the *Tiger Global* GAAR ruling of 15 January 2026. Read together, the cycle discloses the doctrinal and administrative architecture within which tax practice now operates.
On 21 November 2025, the Supreme Court stayed proceedings in GR Infra Projects Ltd. v. State of Madhya Pradesh, prima facie holding that a show-cause notice under Section 74 of the CGST Act that sets out only figures, without a factual narration of fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression, is legally deficient. The order has shaped the High Court line on Section 74 and, by extension, on Section 74A — which now governs the extended-limitation regime from 1 April 2024 — and reaffirms the jurisdictional-fact doctrine for the extended-limitation framework.
The 28 May 2026 judgment upholding the 28% GST levy on online money gaming, fantasy sports and casinos is the largest indirect-tax ruling in India in a generation — and the reasoning is more interesting than the outcome. A digest of the actionable-claims doctrine, the rejection of the skill-versus-chance test, and what survives for the practitioner advising in this space.
The GST Appellate Tribunal was statutorily provided for in 2017 but operationally inert for nearly eight years. The notification of the GSTAT (Procedure) Rules, 2025 on 24 April 2025 — followed by GSTAT becoming operational from September 2025 — has produced an institutional architecture that the GST framework had been missing since inception. The 30 June 2026 special backlog cutoff is the most urgent practitioner item. A digest of the Rules, the operational architecture, and the timeline practitioners must be tracking.