Constitution Art. 32

Constitution Art. 32 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section Constitution Art. 32, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Internet and Mobile Association of India v RBI Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  The AO's position is that dealing in crypto was illegal in the years under assessment. Is there Supreme Court authority the other way?
  Yes, on the regulatory question. The Supreme Court set aside the RBI's April 2018 circular that had barred regulated entities from providing services to persons dealing in virtual currencies, holding the measure disproportionate, and recorded that RBI itself had not banned virtual currencies. The judgment also records that courts in different jurisdictions have placed virtual currencies in categories ranging from property to commodity. It decides nothing about the Income-tax Act.
• Escorts Ltd v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps department
  I wrote off the whole cost of a laboratory building and its equipment under the scientific research provision. Can I also take depreciation on the same assets in later years, and can the department deny it for years before 1980 using an amendment made in 1980?
  No to the first, and yes to the second, and the reason for the second is the answer to the first. Section 35(2)(iv) as substituted by the Finance (No.2) Act 1980, with retrospective effect from 1 April 1962, provides that where a deduction is allowed for any previous year under section 35 in respect of expenditure represented wholly or partly by an asset, no deduction shall be allowed under clauses (i), (ii) and (iii) of section 32(1) for the same or any other previous year in respect of that asset. The petitioners said that was a new burden imposed on closed years and attacked it under Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 300-A. The Supreme Court dismissed the petitions. It held that even before the 1980 amendment the Act did not permit depreciation on the cost of a capital asset acquired for scientific research to the extent that cost had been written off under the scientific research provision, so the amendment effected no change at all except to set out more clearly and categorically what the provision said even earlier. Being clarificatory, it took away no vested right. The reason the pre-amendment law was already to that effect is the sentence the case is now known for: there is an axiom, unwritten but fundamental, that no legislature could have intended a double deduction for the same business outgoing, and if it is intended it will be clearly expressed.
• Federation of All India Vyapar Mandal v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps departmentJudgment not reachable
  I heard the 45-day MSME payment rule was challenged in the Supreme Court. Was it struck down?
  Nothing has been struck down. Section 43B(h) is in force. Tax-press reports in 2024 said a traders' federation had moved the Supreme Court against the clause and that the Court did not take up the challenge, but no order of any court in that matter has been located, and the reports do not agree with each other on what was actually done. Treat the position as: no court has struck down or read down s.43B(h), and there is no order you can cite.

Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.