Introduction UPI, mobile banking, digital wallets and prepaid payment instruments have made moving money faster and easier than ever. Unfortunately, the same infrastructure that makes a legitimate payment instant also lets a fraudster move stolen funds through several accounts before anyone notices. A mule account is a bank account used to receive, hold or pass…
Introduction WhatsApp has started asking some users in India to confirm they are over eighteen before they can keep using the app. On its face, it looks like nothing more than another screen to tap through, the kind of prompt people barely register before moving on. But the timing tells a different story. This age…
Introduction Foreign trade notifications routinely straddle the line between policy flexibility and legal certainty. Exporters plan shipments, price contracts and calculate margins around the incentive schemes announced by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), and any retrospective tinkering with those schemes whether to grant a benefit or to take one away has an outsized…
Introduction The Central Government has notified the Employees’ Provident Fund (“EPF”) Scheme, 2026, replacing the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme, 1952, which had governed retirement savings in India for nearly seven decades. Framed under the Code on Social Security, 2020, the new scheme touches close to seven crore active EPFO subscribers and, within days of its…
Introduction Every digital fraud alert a bank sends out today tells only part of the story. A fraudster caught moving money through one bank’s mule account has often already opened five more, spread across other banks, wallets and payment apps, long before any single institution connects the dots. India’s fraud detection systems have largely been…
Introduction The hospitality sector presents a distinctive compliance problem under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (“DPDP Act, 2023”), read with the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 (“DPDP Rules, 2025”). The personal data a hotel processes rarely originates from a single, controlled channel. It flows in through Online Travel Aggregators, walk-in bookings, corporate…
Introduction The intersection of tax recovery mechanisms under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and the priority framework under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 has generated recurring litigation. A frequent point of contention is whether a statutory first charge created under tax statutes automatically confers the status of a secured creditor in…
Introduction The Supreme Court has reiterated that procedural technicalities cannot be permitted to frustrate the statutory objective of industrial dispute resolution under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (“ID Act”). In doing so, the Court reaffirmed that conciliation is intended to function as a preventive mechanism for resolving industrial disputes at their nascent stage and should…
Introduction The Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) published the Digital Payments E-Mandate Framework 2026 (“Direction”) on April 21, 2026, in accordance with its legal authority under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (“The Act”). The Direction unifies various circulars and guidance pertaining to recurrent digital transactions into a single, cohesive document. The Directions are…
Introduction The healthcare sector in India is witnessing a change with the advancement of technology. The use of medical devices is not limited to wards and laboratories anymore. Smart insulin pumps, fitness trackers, heart rate monitors, intelligent diagnostic applications, image processing systems, and patient monitoring applications are some of the many innovations that form part…
Introduction The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, in Commissioner of Service Tax, Mumbai v. M/s Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. & Ors., C.A. No. 2471-2473 OF 2015 : 2026 INSC 723, decided on 20.07.2026, restored service tax demands exceeding ₹16 crore against Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (“BPCL“) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (“HPCL“). The Hon’ble Court…
Introduction In the instances wherein the employer discharges an employee while there is a pending industrial dispute, it is mandatory to adhere to specific requirements in the form of the payment or promise of one month’s wages along with the approval from the competent authority under Section 33(2)(b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter…
Introduction Lenders assessed creditworthiness using traditional indicators such as repayment history, income, and existing loans, with Credit Information Companies like CIBIL converting these into a credit score. AI-driven credit scoring is transforming this approach by analysing alternative data, including mobile usage, utility bill payments, digital transactions, app behaviour, and device patterns, to assess borrowers with…
Introduction The European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) has issued detailed guidelines on anonymisation and web scraping in the context of generative AI. These guidelines clarify when data can be considered truly “anonymous” and therefore outside the scope of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Although the guidelines are not binding in India, they are…
Introduction Corporate amalgamations often transfer tax liabilities to the successor entity. But can GST authorities continue proceedings in the name of a company that has legally ceased to exist? The Bombay High Court addressed this question in Kanakia Spaces Realty Private Limited v. Union of India, Writ Petition No. 2586 of 2026 vide order dated…
Introduction The Central Government has notified the Employees’ Provident Fund (“EPF”) Scheme, 2026, replacing the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme, 1952, which had governed retirement savings in India for nearly seven decades. Framed under the Code on Social Security, 2020, the new scheme touches close to seven crore active EPFO subscribers and, within days of its…
Introduction Spanning from credit decisions, fraud detection, customer service, to risk management, banks and other regulated entities in India have gradually shifted their reliance on spreadsheet-based calculators to high-tech AI and machine learning systems. This transition has brought tangible efficiencies but also a new class of risk not covered by traditional banking supervision. To address…
Introduction While facial recognition technology has emerged as a critical tool for policing and infrastructural purposes in India, the technology’s use does not have a legal mechanism that is specifically designed to regulate it. While the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (“DPDP Act”) provides for a legal framework on how personal data should be…
Introduction The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime was conceived as a unified indirect tax regime to eliminate cascading effect of taxes, by replacing multiple central and state taxes with a single destination-based system. In practice, it operates under a dual control framework in which the Central Government and State/Union Territory authorities share administration and…
Introduction In Subhash v. Union of India & Others, O.A. 1077 of 2013, the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad Bench has by an order dated 07.04.2026, rejected a case of regularisation, temporary position, and arrears of salary brought before the Tribunal by a claimant claiming to have continuously served as a casual worker of Bharat Sanchar…
Introduction For years, India’s fintech ecosystem have seen a familiar script unfold. A customer success executive with database access exports a CSV with thousands of user profile names, PAN numbers, bank account details, loan histories. The internal security team logs the anomaly. HR silently suspends the employee. Legal counsel is in the loop. Then the…
FACTS M/s Jai Balaji Industries Ltd. (“Petitioner”), a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, had placed several purchase orders upon Garuda Ispat Private Limited (“Respondent”) during 2016 for supply of steel materials. A dispute arose between the parties concerning quality of the material supplied and payments claimed by the Respondent. The Petitioner rejected material…
Introduction The Hon’ble Guwahati High Court in Gurucharan Kangsa Banik v. Union of India, W.P.(C) No. 2881 of 2026, decided on 03.06.2026, set aside an Order-in-Original which had denied input tax credit (“ITC”) to a bona fide purchasing dealer solely on the ground that the selling dealer had failed to deposit the tax collected from…
Introduction Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Azim Premji v. State of U.P. Application U/S 3261 of 2017, decided on 29.05.2024, the criminal complaint proceedings along with the summoning order and bailable warrant issued against the Chairman and Managing Director of a company for allegedly violating the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 by an independent third-party…
Introduction The global fintech landscape is witnessing a defining contest between privately issued stablecoins and government-backed digital currencies. Rather than following international trends, India has adopted a cautious regulatory approach centred on the Digital Rupee and long-term financial stability. The largest policy challenge of the moment is to decide on whether there should be privately…
Brief Facts An agreement for sale of iron ore was executed on 12.02.2004 between M/s Tarini Prasad Mohanty (the mine owner/appellant) and M/s Sunflag Iron and Steel Company Limited (SISCO/respondent). Supplementary agreements were also entered into subsequently. Disputes arose between the parties, and in accordance with the arbitration clause, the matter was referred to a…
Introduction Cloud regulation is no longer limited to questions of data protection and cybersecurity. Increasingly, governments are also examining who controls the infrastructure on which data is stored, processed, and accessed. Reflecting this shift, the European Commission proposed the Cloud and AI Development Act on 3 June 2026, a legislative initiative aimed at strengthening the…
Introduction Proceedings under the Customs Act rarely remain confined to the importing entity alone. In cases involving alleged concealment or misdeclaration, customs authorities often proceed not only against the firm but also against the individuals connected with the transaction. A recent decision of the Ahmedabad Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal…
Introduction An employee disappears from work without notice. The employer sends a registered letter to the address on file. No reply comes. Weeks later, the employee surfaces, claims he tried to return and was turned away, and files a complaint before the Labour Commissioner. The Labour Court awards reinstatement with full back wages. The High…
Introduction If you have ever had a subscription auto-renew unexpectedly, a streaming service quietly debit your account, or an EMI go through without any warning, you have experienced the gap that India’s e-mandate framework was supposed to fill. That gap is now being closed. On April 21, 2026, the Reserve Bank of India issued the…
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