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.
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 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 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.