There is no power in s.133A to convert a survey into a search. What happens is that a competent authority issues a separate authorisation under s.132(1), which requires information in his possession and a recorded reason to believe. That matters to you because everything recorded after the authorisation is a statement on oath under s.132(4) and everything before it is not, and because a conversion for which no satisfaction was recorded has been struck down.
Two different powers are being exercised on the same day, and they sit in different places in the Act.
The survey power is in s.133A. Sub-section (1) opens "Notwithstanding anything contained in any other provision of this Act, an income-tax authority may enter—", and sub-section (2) confines the entry: "An income-tax authority may enter any place of business or profession referred to in sub-section (1) only during the hours at which such place is open for the conduct of business or profession and, in the case of any other place, only after sunrise and before sunset." What the authority may then do is listed in sub-section (3): place marks of identification and take extracts or copies, "make an inventory of any cash, stock or other valuable article or thing checked or verified by him", and "record the statement of any person which may be useful for, or relevant to, any proceeding under this Act." Sub-section (4) is the limit that decides most conversion disputes: "An income-tax authority acting under this section shall, on no account, remove or cause to be removed from the place wherein he has entered, any books of account or other documents or any cash, stock or other valuable article or thing."
So a survey party that wants to take anything away, or to put anyone on oath, has run out of section. The only thing s.133A gives it in the face of non-cooperation is s.133A(6): "If a person under this section is required to afford facility to the income-tax authority to inspect books of account or other documents or to check or verify any cash, stock or other valuable article or thing or to furnish any information or to have his statement recorded either refuses or evades to do so, the income-tax authority shall have all the powers under sub-section (1) of section 131" — and the words "sub-section (1) of section 131" were substituted for "sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 131" by the Direct Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 1987 with effect from 1 April 1989. That is a summons power, not a search power.
The search power is in s.132, and it belongs to someone else. The opening words on the departmental page are "Where the Director General or Director or the Chief Commissioner or Commissioner or any such Joint Director or Joint Commissioner as may be empowered in this behalf by the Board, in consequence of information in his possession, has reason to believe that—", followed by the three limbs in clauses (a) to (c). That list of authorising officers is out of date and should not be reproduced in a pleading. Four forms of the departmental s.132 page were opened and every one is a stale snapshot - the newest stops at the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2009, the bare one at the Direct Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 1987, and one still prints 'Deputy Director or Deputy Commissioner' - so none of them carries the Principal Director General, Principal Chief Commissioner or Principal Commissioner designations introduced from 2013. Take the list from the current Act. Only once that authorisation exists does s.132(4) become available: "The authorised officer may, during the course of the search or seizure, examine on oath any person who is found to be in possession or control of any books of account, documents, money, bullion, jewellery or other valuable article or thing and any statement made by such person during such examination may thereafter be used in evidence in any proceeding under the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 (11 of 1922), or under this Act."
The practical consequence is that "conversion" is the wrong word for what the department did, and saying so is the beginning of the argument. Nothing inside the survey turned into anything. A different and higher officer formed a belief on information in his possession, recorded it, and signed a warrant; the survey party then acted under that warrant. Each of those steps has a time on it, and each is capable of being asked for.
How far that can be pushed is set by two decisions this library already holds. Seth Brothers fixes the conditions precedent — information with the competent authority, a consequent reason to believe, the recording of that belief, and a written authorisation naming the officer — and holds that irregularity in the way a search is executed does not vitiate it where the officers acted bona fide. Laljibhai Mandalia fixes the ceiling: forming the reason to believe is an administrative act, a writ court will not weigh whether the material was adequate, and the challenge lies only in mala fides, pretence or extraneous material. So the attack is not "the material was thin". It is "there was no recorded satisfaction for the search at all", which is a want of the condition precedent rather than a complaint about its quality.
That attack has succeeded. The Punjab and Haryana High Court in Pawan Kumar Goel v. Union of India (2019) 417 ITR 82 / 265 Taxman 25 / 309 CTR 276 / 180 DTR 1 dealt with summons issued under s.131 which indicated survey operations under s.133A and a proceeding that was then converted into search and seizure; the court recorded that the summons did not state what information was required, that the authorities had shown nothing to say the assessee had failed to cooperate or had concealed income, and that no satisfaction justifying the conversion had been recorded, and it quashed and set aside the search and seizure. The Revenue's special leave petition was dismissed, reported as CIT v. Pawan Kumar Goel (2020) 275 Taxman 2 (SC). That account, and the citations reproduced above for both the judgment and the dismissal of the special leave petition, are taken from a digest on a single host; the judgment itself was not read, the judges and the date of decision are not on the page consulted, and no second host carrying the decision could be reached. Check the citation before it goes into a pleading, and use the decision as a route to argue rather than as an authority offered on the strength of this note.
What none of this answers is the evidentiary weight of a statement that runs across the two regimes — begun as a s.133A record and continued, after the warrant, as a s.132(4) examination on oath. Nothing on that could be found. The workable course remains the documentary one: fix the hour of entry, the hour the authorisation was executed, and the hour each page of the statement was signed, and treat what precedes the warrant as a survey statement with the consequences the library already sets out under Khader Khan Son, Paul Mathews and Dhingra Metal Works.
A department that describes the evening as a continuation of the morning is asking you to accept that the whole day's statement is on oath. It is not, unless a warrant exists and you have been told when it was executed. Separating the two also decides which arguments are open: the no-oath point belongs only to the survey half, and the conditions-precedent point belongs only to the search half.
I paid advance tax for the year but had not filed my return when the search took place. Can the department still call that income undisclosed?
When must the satisfaction note be recorded before proceedings are taken against a third party?
A search was made on someone else and my papers were found. From which date are my six years counted - the search, or when my Assessing Officer got the papers?
The company and I have a mutual, open and current account with money moving both ways. Is the deemed dividend the closing debit balance, the highest debit balance during the year, or something else? And can the Department tax money that reached me through a firm rather than directly?
I gave the lenders' names, addresses and PAN and filed their confirmations, but I cannot produce them and the summonses came back unserved. Can the loans still be added under section 68?
They recorded your statement in a survey. Can the addition rest on that alone?
The seized documents say nothing about the years being assessed. Can s.153C still be used for them?
Customs seized my cash and was ordered to return it. Can the income-tax department issue a search warrant and take it from customs instead?
Every page in this library links to what it was written from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.