Section 292C

Case law › Section 292C

The Income-tax Act, 1961 was repealed on 1 April 2026. It still governs income earned up to 31 March 2026, and every proceeding about those years however late — assessment, reassessment, rectification, penalty, revision and appeal alike. Income earned from 1 April 2026 is governed by the Income-tax Act, 2025. What changed, and which Act governs your year →

Section 292C — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 292C, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

Pepsi Foods Pvt Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
The satisfaction note says the officer is satisfied and nothing else. Is that enough to found a s.153C notice?

On s.153C as it stood before 1 June 2015. No. Anything found during a search is presumed by law to belong to the person searched. Before the Assessing Officer of the searched person can say a document belongs to somebody else, he must rebut that presumption on cogent material, and the satisfaction note itself must show the reasons. A note that only recites the word 'satisfied' fails the first step, and everything built on it goes. Read the decision only against that older wording: with effect from 1 June 2015 s.153C was widened to cover books or documents that 'pertain to' the other person or contain information 'relating to' him, and in ITO v. Vikram Sujitkumar Bhatia (SC, 2023) the Supreme Court held the amended provision applies even where the search was conducted before that date. The 'belongs to' analysis in this case is therefore not the current test.
Manoj Kumar Jagetia v ITO ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
My s.80GGC donation has been disallowed and the same money added back under s.69A, purely because the Investigation Wing says the party ran a cash-back racket. Nothing in the order names me. Can that stand?

No. A general modus operandi found in a search of the recipient political party may justify opening an enquiry, but it cannot by itself prove that this donor got his money back; the Revenue must produce assessee-specific material and must confront the donor with it. The Tribunal restored the full Rs.3,00,000 deduction under s.80GGC and deleted the consequential Rs.2,85,000 addition under s.69A.
Kimaya Buildtech LLP v DCIT ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
The addition against me rests on a WhatsApp chat found on someone else's phone in his search, and on his statement under s.132(4). Does the presumption in s.132(4A) and s.292C apply to me?

No. The presumption runs against the person from whose possession or control the material was found, not against a third party named in it. Without corroborative material the assessee is not even required to explain the contents, and the Rs 4 crore on-money addition was deleted.
CBDT Instruction No. 1916 of 11 May 1994 — jewellery that is not to be seized CBDT Circulars & InstructionsHelps taxpayer
The search party found my family's gold. Is there a quantity the department is not supposed to touch?

Yes, for seizure. The Board's instruction tells the authorised officer not to seize gold jewellery and ornaments up to 500 grams per married lady, 250 grams per unmarried lady and 100 grams per male member of the family where the person is not assessed to wealth-tax, and to leave more than that where the status of the family and the customs of the community justify it. It is written as a seizure instruction, and whether it also bars an addition is a separate fight.

Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.

Section 292C — 4 entries

Worked examples

Notice situations in which section 292C does the work, taken from the first line to the last. Each step carries the authority that licenses it.

A return revised to bring in a survey surrender, and an officer who says it was never a valid revision We revised the return within time to bring in what was surrendered in a survey, and the officer now says s.139(5) does not cover a deliberate understatement and that the original return stands - how do we answer that? 9 steps · 40 authorities · s.139(5), s.133A, s.292C, s.139(1) A s.153C notice for seven years landed after a search on the builder we sold land to What must the Department have done before it can assess me on the back of somebody else's search? 7 steps · 18 authorities · s.153C, s.153A, s.132, s.153D Cash and loose sheets found in a search, taxed at the special rate The AO has taxed everything found at my premises as unexplained money at the special rate - can I get out of the section, or at least off the rate? 6 steps · 18 authorities · s.69A, s.115BBE, s.292C, s.132(4) Cash and two ledgers taken by the police, requisitioned under s.132A four weeks later, and a block assessment notice built on them The police seized my client's cash and books and the department has requisitioned them under s.132A - what can be assessed out of that, and from what date does anything run? 8 steps · 31 authorities · s.132A, s.132, s.132B, s.158BA

Explained in this library

What section 292c does, in plain English, before you read what the courts made of it.

A survey statement is not a search statement, and the clock on the wall matters

Our partner signed a surrender in a survey that ran past midnight. What is that statement actually worth?

Devices, mirror images and the s.65B certificate

The case against me is a hard disk, a Tally backup and a WhatsApp dump taken off my phone in the search. What are the rules?

No incriminating material, no addition — but only for the years that were already closed

The search turned up nothing for this year and the officer has still made an addition. Can he?

s.153C: the satisfaction note

A search was carried out on somebody else and now I have a notice under section 153C. What is this satisfaction note everyone talks about, who has to write it and when, what must it actually say, and what happens to my assessment if it is badly written or was never written at all?

The officer read '250' on the sheet as Rs 2.5 lakh. Where does that figure come from?

A seized loose sheet has bare numbers on it and the AO has multiplied them by a thousand. Can he do that?

There is no deadline for a retraction — delay is an argument, not a bar

I want to go back on what I said on oath during the search. Is it too late?