Ergo Update

On 19 May 2022, the Hon’ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana (P&H High Court) delivered a judgment in the case of Novex Communications Private Limited v. Union of India and Another, CWP No. 28758 of 2019, wherein the Court quashed a public notice dated 27 August 2019 issued by the Registrar of Copyright interpreting Section 52(1)(za) of the Copyright Act, 1957 (Section 52(1)(za)).

In a bid to breathe life back into the stalled Slum Rehabilitation projects (SRA Projects) in the state of Maharashtra, the state government recently passed a resolution to frame a policy for effective implementation and completion of these projects in the state, several of which seem to have lost steam in the past years.

In an endeavour to promote India as a filming destination and increase investments from foreign filmmakers in India, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) on 18 May 2022 announced two new schemes aimed at incentivising foreign films and foreign co-productions, respectively.

In the recent judgement of PTC India Financial Services Limited v Venkateswarlu Kari and Anr, Civil Appeal No. 5443 of 2019, the Supreme Court provided clarity to the creation and enforcement of pledged securities in dematerialised form.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Madhya Pradesh High Court Advocates Bar Association and Anr. v. Union of India, W.P. (C) No. 433 of 2012, upheld the vires of Sections 3, 14 and 22 of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 (NGT Act).

In a significant judgment pronounced in a batch of appeals on 17 May 2022 titled New Okhla Industrial Development Authority v. Anand Sonbhadra, Civil Appeal No. 2222 of 2021, the Supreme Court (SC), declared that New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (Noida) is an operational creditor (OC) and not a financial creditor (FC) for the purposes of a corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 (Code).

While this is a judgment  under the pre-GST service tax laws, the legal provisions analyzed in this judgment are similar to corresponding provisions under GST and to that extent, this judgment has the potential to re-open the pandoras box of service tax/GST issues on secondment/deputation of manpower, whether from outside India to India or within India. 

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has initiated an anti-dumping investigation concerning imports of “Dispersion Unshifted Single-Mode Optical Fibre” (SMOF) originating in or exported from China, South Korea and Indonesia by a Notification dated 6th May, 2022.

On 7 May 2022, the Department of Telecommunications (“DoT”) launched a centralized portal ‘Sugam Sanchar’ to facilitate ‘Right of Way’ (“RoW”) permissions and approvals.

In a recent order in Union of India & Ors v Ashish Agarwal (Civil Appeal No. 3005/2022) (Order), the Hon’ble Supreme Court (Supreme Court) has held that reassessment notices issued under the old reassessment regime (ie law existing prior to 1 April 2021) are deemed to have been issued under new Section 148A of the Income Tax Act 1961 (IT Act).