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.