Section 248 — Powers to requisition. Successor to s.132A of the 1961 Act.
Section 248 is in Chapter XIV — Tax Administration, which runs from section 236 to section 261.
Sub-section (1) allows the approving authority, on information in his possession, to authorise a requisition in three situations: where a person served with a summons under section 131(1) or a notice under section 142(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, or a summons under section 246(1) or notice under section 268(1) of this Act, has failed to produce books, documents or electronic information and those records or the computer system holding them have been taken into custody by an officer or authority under another law; where such records will be useful for or relevant to a proceeding under either Act and the person would not produce them if they were returned to him; or where assets taken into custody by an officer or authority under another law represent, wholly or partly, income or property not disclosed or that would not have been disclosed. The authorisation goes to a Joint Director, Joint Commissioner, Assistant Director, Assistant Commissioner or Income-tax Officer, called the requisitioning officer, to require the custodian officer or authority to deliver the assets, books, documents or computer system to him. Sub-section (2) obliges that officer or authority to deliver them either forthwith or when it considers retention no longer necessary. Sub-section (3) then imports the search machinery: sections 247(4)(b), 247(7) to (11), 250 and 251 apply as if the material had been seized under section 247 by the requisitioning officer, reading "the requisitioning officer" for "the authorised officer".
Where records or assets are already lawfully in the hands of another agency, a search would be pointless and a summons futile; this section lets the department take delivery of them instead. Sub-section (3) exists so that a requisition is not a lesser process — once delivered, the material is treated as if seized in a search, with the same rules on retention, application of assets and presumptions.
If your books, records or assets are in the custody of another agency, they can be handed over to the income-tax department on a requisition without any fresh search at your premises, and you get no separate opportunity to resist the delivery — the obligation in sub-section (2) is on the custodian, not on you. The other agency need not hand them over at once; it may keep them until it considers retention unnecessary. Once delivered, treat the position as if there had been a seizure under section 247: the retention rules, the application of seized assets under section 250 and the presumptions in section 251 all apply, with the requisitioning officer standing in the place of the authorised officer. Note that clause (b) can be invoked prospectively, on the basis of a summons or notice that "might be issued".
Another agency, investigating a person under a different law, has taken his ledgers and a server into custody, and he had already failed to produce them on a summons issued under section 246(1). Rather than searching him again, the approving authority, on information in his possession, authorises an Income-tax Officer as requisitioning officer to require that agency to deliver the books and the computer system. The person himself has no separate say, because the obligation in sub-section (2) runs against the custodian, and the custodian need not act at once — it may deliver forthwith or when it forms the opinion that retention is no longer necessary. Once delivered, sub-section (3) treats the material as if it had been seized under section 247 by the requisitioning officer, so the retention rules, the application of assets under section 250 and the presumptions in section 251 all apply.
You meet it through the requisition itself and, more often, through what follows — material held by another agency appearing in your income-tax proceedings with the section 251 presumptions attached to it. The authorities named are the approving authority, who authorises, and the requisitioning officer, who must be a Joint Director, Joint Commissioner, Assistant Director, Assistant Commissioner or Income-tax Officer.
the approving authority may authorise any, Joint Director or Joint Commissioner or Assistant Director or Assistant Commissioner or Income-tax Officer (herein and in section 489(2) referred to as the requisitioning officer) to require the officer or authority referred to in clause (a) or (b) or (c), to deliver such assets or books of account or other documents, or computer system containing such information to the requisitioning officer
See the full 1961 to 2025 concordance.
All of them are in the Rules 2026 index.
See the circulars index.
