Rule 268 — Powers of prescribed authority and Inquiry Officer.
For the purposes of any proceedings under rules 261 to 267, the rule vests the prescribed authority and the Inquiry Officer with the same powers as a Court has under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 when trying a suit, in respect of four matters: discovery and inspection; enforcing the attendance of any person, including any officer of a banking company, and examining him on oath; compelling the production of books of account and other documents; and issuing commissions.
Rules 261 to 267 set up an inquiry into the conduct of an authorised income-tax practitioner, running from the order for an inquiry and the charge-sheet through the proceedings before the Inquiry Officer to the order of the prescribed authority. An inquiry of that kind is worthless if the persons and documents that would prove or disprove the charge cannot be brought before it. The rule supplies the compulsion, and borrows it wholesale from the Code of Civil Procedure rather than inventing a separate procedure.
The powers are conferred for the purposes of proceedings under rules 261 to 267 and are bounded by the four matters listed — they are not a general power of investigation, and they do not extend to any other proceeding. Within those four matters they are the powers of a Court trying a suit, so attendance can be enforced and evidence taken on oath rather than merely requested. The express mention of an officer of a banking company matters in practice: the bank's officer can be summoned and examined like any other witness, and the bank's records compelled under the production power. Both the prescribed authority and the Inquiry Officer hold these powers, so the Inquiry Officer does not have to route a summons through the prescribed authority.
In an inquiry against an authorised income-tax practitioner, the Inquiry Officer needs a bank's records to test a charge. He may compel production of the books of account and other documents and may enforce the attendance of the bank's officer and examine him on oath, exercising the powers a Court has under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 when trying a suit. He may also issue a commission where evidence has to be recorded elsewhere.
A reader meets this rule through a summons, a notice to produce documents or a commission issued in the course of an inquiry under rules 261 to 267 into the conduct of an authorised income-tax practitioner.
the prescribed authority and the Inquiry Officer shall have the same powers as are vested in a Court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (5 of 1908), when trying a suit in respect of the following matters