Section 69B

Section 69B — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 69B, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Fakir Mohmed Haji Hasan v CIT High CourtHelps department
  An unexplained investment has been added to my income under section 69A and the asset was then confiscated. Can I set the loss off against that addition?
  No. The Gujarat High Court held that income deemed under sections 69, 69A, 69B and 69C falls under none of the heads in section 14, not even income from other sources, because those sections apply precisely where the source is unknown or unexplained. Since the deemed income cannot be classified under a head, the deductions that go with a head are not available against it. Gold worth Rs 48,72,000 found concealed in the assessee's car and confiscated by customs was rightly added under section 69A, and its confiscation could not be claimed as a trading loss.
• CBDT letter of 29 May 2026 on invoking ss.68 to 69D with s.115BBE CBDT Circulars & InstructionsHelps taxpayer
  Is there anything from the Board telling the officer he has to establish the section before he makes a deeming addition?
  Yes. Following a C&AG compliance audit that found officers were invoking the wrong section and applying the wrong rate, the Board directed field offices that the Assessing Officer "has to satisfy himself as to the true nature and source of the amounts for which such sections are invoked", that the necessary enquiry — including under s.133(6) — may be carried out, and that "Based upon inquiry and facts of the case, relevant provisions of the Act may be invoked." The same letter gives the Income-tax Act 2025 counterparts: s.195 for s.115BBE and s.252 for s.133(6), each one for one, and “section 102, 103, 104, 105 and 106” against the whole set “section 68, 69A, 69B, 69C and 69D”, which is a correspondence between two lists and not between their members in order.
• Statutory position — section 158BB: how the block figure is built, what is kept out of it, and why Abhisar Buildwell does not simply carry across CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  The block assessment adds amounts for which nothing was found in the search. Can I take the Abhisar Buildwell point that there must be incriminating material?
  Not in the form in which that case decides it, because Abhisar Buildwell construes section 153A and section 158BB is worded differently. Section 158BB(1) makes the total undisclosed income of the block period the aggregate of only two things — what the assessee declares as undisclosed income in his section 158BC return, and what the Assessing Officer determines under section 158BB(2); and section 158BB(2) requires that determination to be made 'on the basis of evidence found as a result of search or survey or requisition of books of account or other documents and any other material or information as are either available with the Assessing Officer or come to his notice during the course of proceedings under this Chapter'.
• Statutory position — section 79A: no set-off against undisclosed income found in a search, requisition or survey, from AY 2022-23 CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  A search threw up unaccounted stock and cash and the Assessing Officer has added it. I have a large brought-forward loss and unabsorbed depreciation sitting there. Can I set them off against the addition?
  For AY 2022-23 and every later year, no. Section 79A, inserted by the Finance Act 2022 (Act No. 6 of 2022) with effect from 1 April 2022, says that where, consequent to a search under s.132, a requisition under s.132A or a survey under s.133A other than s.133A(2A), the total income of any previous year includes undisclosed income, no set-off of any loss — brought forward or of the current year — and no set-off of unabsorbed depreciation under s.32(2) shall be allowed against that undisclosed income under any provision of the Act.
• CBDT Circular No. 11/2019 — set-off of loss against s.115BBE income CBDT Circulars & InstructionsHelps taxpayer
  Is there anything from the Board itself I can put in front of the officer on setting off losses against s.68 or s.69 additions in an old year?
  Yes. Circular No. 11 of 2019 records the Board's view that an assessee is entitled to claim set-off of loss against income determined under s.115BBE up to assessment year 2016-17. It is the department's own instruction, so an Assessing Officer cannot take a contrary view for those years — and by the same document, the position from assessment year 2017-18 is that the set-off is denied.
• 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.