The Supreme Court dismissed the government’s review petition in the Vodafone tax case on Tuesday, affirming its January ruling that put overseas transfers of shares outside the Indian tax net. The review petition and last week’s budget proposals seeking retrospective changes have revived the uncertainty over tax laws, according to government officials, the Planning Commission and businesses. If Parliament passes the budget in its current form, the judgement in the Vodafone case...

India's decision this month to produce Germany-based multinational Bayer's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, in the first use of "compulsory licensing" in South Asia, will save lives but also raises intricate questions. Under the compulsory licensing process, a government can under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules bypass a patent owner's rights after three years and order the manufacture and sale of life-saving medicines at much cheaper cost than by obtaining the medicine from...

-Reuters   Cheap generic drugs were meant to change the life of Nandakhu Nissar, whose mouth is swollen by a cancerous tumour. But the cashless and hungry 55-year-old sleeps on a pavement staring up at the windows of Mumbai's biggest cancer hospital.  "What is a generic drug?" shrugs Nissar, who has travelled over 1,500 kms (900 miles) from his home in the hope of treatment. "I have borrowed money from friends and relatives...

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee maintained on Sunday that the budgetary proposal to amend the Income Tax Act with retrospective effect from 1962 to assert the government's right to levy tax on merger and acquisition (M&A) deals involving overseas companies with business assets in India is not Vodafone “case specific,” but an enabling provision to protect the fiscal interests of the country and avert the chances of a crisis. Faced with all-round...

Parliament has the power and jurisdiction to clarify, enact law or bring amendments to a law with retrospective effect to remove the basis or defects in a judgment, say legal experts. Under the proposed amendment to the Income Tax Act announced by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the budget, to come into effect from April 1, 1962, all persons, resident or non-resident, having business connection in India will have to incur...