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.
On 20 January 2012, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court — S.H. Kapadia C.J., K.S. Radhakrishnan J. and Swatanter Kumar J. — unanimously held that the transfer of a single share in a Cayman Islands holding company (CGP) between two non-residents did not give rise to capital gains taxable in India under Section 9(1)(i) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, even though the share's value was rooted in the Hutch–Vodafone Indian telecom chain; the look-at test was adopted, and the Revenue's USD 2.2 billion demand was quashed. Parliament responded with the Finance Act 2012 retrospective amendment to Section 9(1)(i); Vodafone then commenced a treaty arbitration under the India–Netherlands BIT and prevailed; the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Act 2021 ultimately rolled back the retrospective amendment. A digest of the judgment, its statutory architecture, and the doctrinal arc that has followed.