Introduction The internet has made Child Sexual Abuse Material (hereinafter referred to as “CSAM”) a profoundly transnational crime. A child may be located in India, the offender may operate from another jurisdiction, the platform may be incorporated in the United States, and the relevant electronic evidence may be stored across multiple servers. Yet, investigations continue…
Introduction The question of whether the Government can retain an amount collected as tax despite the absence of a lawful statutory liability has repeatedly arisen under the erstwhile service tax regime. The issue becomes particularly significant where tax has been paid under an erroneous classification and the assessee subsequently establishes that the underlying activity was…
Introduction The Hon’ble Supreme Court, in R.J. Gajendra Kumar v. Government of Tamil Nadu & Anr., 2026 INSC 911, has reiterated that amendments to Government Orders (“GOs”) modifying existing service conditions must be interpreted reasonably so as to avoid unnecessary hardship to persons who had no control over the subsequent change in the governing framework….
Introduction India’s digital payments revolution is often defined by one word, UPI. The Unified Payments Interface has transformed the manner in which money moves, making transactions instant, interoperable and accessible. However, the next phase of India’s digital financial journey may not be about making payments faster. It may be about making financial opportunity easier to…
Introduction The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (“DPDP Act”) borrows some of the European Union (“EU”)’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)’s vocabulary a Data Fiduciary echoes a “controller,” a Data Principal echoes a “data subject” and the legal architecture behind those words is roughly the same. In several places the DPDP Act gives a…
Introduction In Vimpro Tech v. Commissioner of Customs (Gr.2), Chennai, decided on 5 August 2026 [(2026) 45 Centax 206 (Mad.)], the Madras High Court examined whether the statutory power to grant provisional release of detained goods under Section 110A of the Customs Act, 1962 can be curtailed by an executive circular of the CBIC. The…
Introduction The Delhi High Court, in the case of M/s Novartis India Ltd. Vs Sarabhjeet Singh and Anr, Writ Petition Civil Appeal Numbers 11095 of 2015, decided on 04.05.2026, upheld the finding by the Labour Court that the termination of Medical Sales Representative Sarabhjeet Singh was illegal and unjustified. This is because the termination being…
Introduction The rapid expansion of digital payments, online banking and fintech platforms has transformed India’s financial ecosystem. However, the same infrastructure has also enabled cyber fraudsters to transfer illicit funds rapidly across multiple bank accounts and payment channels. In response, law-enforcement authorities and financial institutions increasingly rely upon account freezes, debit restrictions and lien markings…
Introduction In August, Meta’s technical team and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) lead to the government clarifying that Meta’s platforms in India must be governed by Indian law, not merely by the company’s global policies. The discussion focused on content moderation, deepfakes, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and the opacity of Meta’s…
Introduction In Torrent Power Ltd. v. Union of India & Ors. Decided on 14 August 2026 (SCA/12175/2024), the Gujarat High Court examined the GST treatment of corporate guarantees furnished between related persons without consideration. The Court held that such guarantees can constitute a taxable supply under Schedule I of the CGST Act even where no…
Introduction In November 2025, the Government of India brought the four labour codes into force the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. This step consolidated 29 central labour statutes into a single legislative framework. That was…
Introduction Over the past three years, the Karnataka High Court has become the principal forum for testing how far the Union Government’s power to control online content in India actually extends. X Corp (formerly Twitter) has twice challenged the Government’s takedown machinery before the Court, first over blocking orders issued under Section 69A of the…
Introduction France’s decision to prohibit unsolicited telemarketing calls from August 2026 onwards marks a significant shift in the philosophy of consumer protection. Rather than requiring consumers to register their objection to marketing calls, the French approach reverses the presumption itself, businesses must obtain consent before making the call. The distinction is important because it determines…
Introduction The intersection of taxation and arbitration raises a fundamental question as to when does a dispute involving tax remain contractual and arbitrable, and when does it enter the exclusive domain of statutory tax authorities? In the matter of Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department v. M/s Vriddhi Infratech India Pvt. Ltd., Arbitration Appeal No. 35…
Introduction Can an employee who has resigned, accepted the consequences of that resignation and used those consequences to move on to a new job later turn around and say that the resignation was never validly accepted? The Hon’ble Supreme Court in Delhi Technological University v. B.S. Rawat (Civil Appeal No. 9308 of 2024, 2026 INSC…
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…
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