Search, survey, statements recorded under oath, and the machinery for assessing a person other than the one searched. 68 entries, strongest first, with what each one decided in a sentence. Read down the list, then open the entry that fits your facts. The Search, Survey & Block Assessment hub cross-lists everything that touches this area, including entries filed under another subject.
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? From the date your Assessing Officer received the material. The Supreme Court held that the proviso to section 153C(1) does not deal only with abatement: it also fixes the date from which the six year period is reckoned for the person who was not searched. The Revenue's argument that the proviso is confined to abatement, so that the period relates back to the date of the search on the other person, was held insubstantial and without merit. The Court approved the Delhi High Court's reasoning in SSP Aviation and dismissed the Revenue's appeals.
A section 153C assessment was made on me after a search on someone else, but nothing incriminating about me was found. Does the Abhisar Buildwell rule protect me too? Yes. The Supreme Court dismissed a batch of Revenue appeals, holding that where no incriminating material was found during the search — either from the assessee or from the third party — the assessments under section 153C were rightly set aside by the High Court. The Court declined to interfere with those judgments. It did, however, record on the Revenue's request, made on the strength of Abhisar Buildwell, that it remains open to the Revenue to initiate reassessment proceedings under sections 147 and 148 in accordance with law, if that is permissible under the law.
Search assessment for a year already completed, but nothing incriminating was found. Can the officer still add? No — not under s.153A. For completed or unabated assessments the addition must rest on incriminating material found in the search. But the Court preserved the department's power to reopen those years under ss.147 and 148 instead.
The search was before June 2015 but the notice came later. Which version of s.153C applies? The amended one. The 2015 amendment, which changed 'belongs to' into 'pertains to', applies to searches conducted before 1 June 2015 as well, because the trigger is when the material reaches the officer having jurisdiction over the other person.
Can I get a search warrant quashed by showing the department's material was too thin? No. Forming the reason to believe under s.132 is an administrative act, and a writ court will not weigh whether the material was adequate. It will only ask whether the belief was mala fide, a pretence, or built on extraneous or irrelevant material.
What if the same officer holds charge of both the searched person and you? Then one satisfaction note is enough, provided it records clearly that the seized documents belong to the other person and not to the searched person. There is nothing to transmit, so no second note is needed.
The seized documents say nothing about the years being assessed. Can s.153C still be used for them? No. The incriminating material must pertain to the assessment years in question, with a document-wise correlation to each. That is a jurisdictional requirement, and without it the notice for those years cannot stand.
Can I demand the satisfaction note and the reasons recorded before a search warrant was issued against me, and get the search quashed if they look thin? No, not at that stage. The Supreme Court held that reasons for the belief under section 132 must be recorded, but need not be communicated to the person searched when the authorisation is issued; the material is disclosed only when assessment proceedings begin after the search. On a writ challenge the reasons may be placed before the court, and the court may examine their relevance to the formation of belief, but not their sufficiency or adequacy. The Delhi High Court had gone into sufficiency, reproduced the satisfaction notes in detail and suspected the file was manipulated; its order was set aside and the search restored.
When must the satisfaction note be recorded before proceedings are taken against a third party? Before the seized records are handed over. It may be recorded at any of three stages — with the initiation of proceedings against the searched person, during them, or immediately after they are completed — but the note itself is a sine qua non.
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? Yes. The Supreme Court held that payment of advance tax is not disclosure of income. Advance tax is paid on an estimate of current income; disclosure of total income happens only in a return. Where the due date under section 139(1) had passed and no return had been filed by the date of search, section 158BB(1)(c) requires the returned income to be taken as nil, and the officer was right to conclude the assessee would not have disclosed the income. Tax deducted at source is no different, being computed on the same estimated basis. The Revenue's six appeals were allowed with costs.
They recorded your statement in a survey. Can the addition rest on that alone? No. Section 133A gives no power to examine anyone on oath, so a survey statement has no evidentiary value on its own and does not bind you — especially once it is retracted. Something more is needed.
What has to happen before a search at someone else's premises can be used against you? Three things, in order: satisfaction recorded that the undisclosed income is yours, the seized material handed to your Assessing Officer, and only then proceedings begun against you. They are conditions precedent, not formalities.
The police seized cash from our employee and the Commissioner issued a section 132A warrant because he had no papers for it — is that authorisation valid? No. The Supreme Court declined to interfere with the Allahabad High Court's decision quashing an authorisation under section 132A. All the Commissioner had before him was that Rs 4,63,000 had been seized by the Railway Police from a person carrying it, that the person had no documents of ownership or possession, and that he was not on the General Index Register of assessees at Mirzapur. On that material no reasonable person could have entertained the belief that the money represented income that would not be disclosed. Mere unexplained possession, without anything more, is not enough. The Revenue's appeal was dismissed.
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? No, not under section 132 as it then stood. The Supreme Court held that where the exact location of the money is known and it is in the lawful custody of another government department, there is nothing to search for and nothing to seize. Possession under section 132 follows physical custody, not legal title, so the money was not in the assessee's possession while customs held it. One government department cannot search another. The Court noted that the gap was later filled by section 132A, and left the Department free to approach the appropriate authorities under it.
The search on me was illegal. Can I stop the department using what it took? No. Indian tax law has no exclusionary rule. The Supreme Court upheld s.132 and rule 112 and held that even if a search contravened the section, the material seized was liable to be used, subject to law, before the income-tax authorities against the person from whose custody it was taken. Illegality in the search goes to relief against the search, not to the admissibility of what it produced.
The search party carted away all our books. Does the way a search was conducted make it illegal? Not by itself. Irregularity in executing a search does not vitiate it where the officers acted bona fide. What does vitiate it is a failure of 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.
I argued before the Tribunal that the s.153D approval was mechanical and its order says nothing about it. Can I take that straight to the High Court? Not usefully. The Kerala High Court declined to answer any issue affirmatively, set aside the Tribunal's order and remitted the appeal for fresh consideration, because the Tribunal had recorded the s.153D ground as one of three issues before it and had not specifically answered it. Every relevant issue must receive the Tribunal's attention before the High Court can adjudicate on it as an appellate forum.
My scrutiny assessment was still running when they searched me in November 2024. Section 158BA(2) says a pending assessment abates. Can I have the assessment order quashed in a writ on that ground alone? Not on that ground alone. The Orissa High Court accepted that a search initiated on or after 1 September 2024 puts the case in the revived block assessment regime of Chapter XIV-B and that s.158BA(2) abates a pending assessment for any year in the block period, but it refused to quash the order because nothing on the record showed that the search had unearthed any undisclosed income of this petitioner, and it relegated him to his appeal.
A survey during a search on a connected group threw up excess stock, and it was added for AY 2007-08. The department says my unabsorbed depreciation cannot be set off against it, and now cites section 79A. Is that right? No, on both counts, for a year before AY 2022-23. The Madras High Court held that unabsorbed depreciation carried forward takes the character of current year depreciation under s.32(2) and, read with ss.71 and 72, can be set off against income of the current year other than capital gains — including an addition of unaccounted stock in business; and it recorded that s.79A, inserted by the Finance Act 2022 with effect from 1 April 2022, does not assist the Revenue for an earlier year.
My client was searched in May 2024 and has a section 148 notice for assessment year 2015-16. Which limitation applies, and is the notice good? The Gujarat High Court held that because the search fell between 1 April 2021 and 1 September 2024, section 152(3) required sections 147 to 151 to be applied as they stood immediately before the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, and that the first proviso to section 149(1) then imports the section 153A and section 153C time limits. Computing the ten-year outer limit from the end of the assessment year relevant to the previous year of search, as Explanation 1 to section 153A(1) directs, assessment year 2025-26 is the first year and the tenth is 2016-17. Assessment year 2015-16 was therefore beyond the ten years, and the notice was quashed.
It is well past 120 days since the search and they still hold my jewellery. Must they release it? No. The expiry of the 120-day period in the second proviso to s.132B(1)(i) does not by itself trigger release. The proviso is mandatory in character but operates only once the Assessing Officer has determined the existing liability, so mere lapse of time does not turn the seizure into unlawful detention, and the remedy for delay lies in interest rather than automatic restoration.
The seized material shows a cash payment made in an earlier year. Can six later years be reopened under s.153C on the strength of it? No. A s.153C notice can be issued for an assessment year only if the Assessing Officer is satisfied that the seized books, documents or assets have a bearing on the determination of the total income for that year. Material about a transaction in one financial year says nothing about the years that follow, and notices for those years cannot stand.
The authorised officer who searched us has now summoned us under s.131(1A). Can he? No, not after the search is over. The officer who issued the notice was the authorised officer for the s.132 search, and s.131(1A) lets the authorised officer use that power only before he takes action under clauses (i) to (v) of s.132(1). The action having already been taken, the notice was quashed; and the department could not save it by pointing to the same person's substantive designation as Deputy Director.
The Department says my search assessment is in time because it made a reference to a foreign tax authority and gets a year excluded under s.153B. The reference was for years the treaty did not cover. Does the exclusion still apply? No. Clause (ix) of the Explanation to s.153B excludes the time taken on a reference for exchange of information only where the reference is made in terms of the agreement under s.90 or s.90A. A request made outside what the treaty permitted is not such a reference, gives no exclusion, and the assessments were time-barred. Twenty-nine Revenue appeals were dismissed.
The Additional Commissioner approved my search assessment along with hundreds of others in a single letter that says nothing but 'approved'. Is that enough under s.153D? No. Where the approving authority accorded approval to 246 proposed assessments by one letter that merely directed that the orders be passed before limitation and copies sent for record, the Delhi High Court held there was no substantial question of law in the Tribunal's conclusion that the approval was mechanical, and dismissed eighteen Revenue appeals. Approval that neither mentions the seized material nor shows that the draft orders were examined is a ritual, not the safeguard s.153D creates.
The satisfaction note points to material for one year, but notices under s.153C have come for the whole block of six. Can they stand? No. Section 153C confers a power; it does not compel its use across the block. Before issuing a notice the Assessing Officer must identify the assessment year or years to which the seized material relates or which it is likely to affect, and must be satisfied that it is likely to bear on the total income of those years. The proceedings are confined to those years. Where the material speaks to one year, notices for the remaining years of the block are unsustainable, and if the Revenue says a document is incriminating for several years the satisfaction note must record reasons for saying so.
How do I count the six and the ten assessment years for a s.153C notice, and does the Rs 50 lakh figure have to be met year by year? Count them from different points, and no. For a person who was not searched, the first proviso to section 153C moves the starting point: the date on which the seized books, documents or assets are handed to his own Assessing Officer stands in place of the date of the search. From that point the six assessment years are the six that immediately precede the assessment year relevant to that previous year - the year of the handing over is excluded and treated as the zero year. The further block of 'relevant assessment years' under Explanation 1 to section 153A is not counted the same way: it runs backwards from the END of that assessment year, that is from the 31st of March, and the tenth year is the terminal point. On the money threshold, the Rs 50 lakh in clause (a) of the fourth proviso is satisfied if the escaped income meets the benchmark cumulatively or in the aggregate; it does not have to be reached in each year separately.
The search on me turned up nothing but the AO still made additions for an old year. Can he? Where the assessment for a year stood completed before the search and nothing was pending to abate, an order under s.153A cannot simply reopen it. A completed assessment can be reassessed under s.153A only on incriminating material found in the search having some nexus to undisclosed income - and the Court left that route open, upholding a remand to the Assessing Officer to reassess if such material exists.
I applied within thirty days to have the asset seized in a search released and explained the source, and the Assessing Officer has simply sat on the application. The hundred and twenty days have long gone. Can he keep holding it? No. The Gujarat High Court held that the time limit in the proviso to clause (i) of sub-section (1) of section 132B is mandatory and not directory, and that it is not permissible for a court to read it as merely directory, because doing so would dilute the statutory rigour and give the Assessing Officer unbridled power to retain seized assets indefinitely against a possible future liability without ever deciding the application. The Court directed the seized diamonds to be handed over to the writ applicant within four weeks.
The addition rests only on an entry operator's search statement. Is that enough to assess me? No. A s.132(4) statement has evidentiary value, but standing alone and without any other material found in the search it cannot support the assessment. Where the statement came out of a search of a third party, s.153C is the route and cannot be bypassed, and the deponent must be offered for cross-examination.
The officers came in on a survey, I cooperated and showed them everything, and then they turned it into a search and took away the cash. Can they do that? No, not on this record. The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the action. Section 133A(4) forbids an income-tax authority acting under that section from removing any cash, stock or valuable article from the premises, and it is only where the person refuses or evades cooperation that section 133A(6) lets the authority fall back on the powers in section 131(1). Here the assessee had voluntarily disclosed and handed over Rs 2,09,89,090, the department produced no material to show non-cooperation, and no satisfaction was ever recorded for converting the survey into a search. The summons under section 131 was also vague, specifying nothing that was required of him. The action was quashed with consequential benefits.
The share capital addition rests on a statement I was never allowed to cross-examine. Does it stand? No. Statements under s.132(4) do not by themselves constitute incriminating material; a copy of the statement and an opportunity to cross-examine the deponent must be given, and where the statement is retracted or cross-examination is refused it has to be discarded. The s.68 additions fell.
A search was carried out on us and the department has reopened six years under section 153A. Can it add to a year where nothing incriminating was found? No. The Delhi High Court held that the Revenue was not justified in invoking section 153A against the assessee for assessment years 2000-01 to 2003-04, there being no incriminating material for each of those years. It declined the Revenue's invitation to reconsider Kabul Chawla in the light of Dayawanti Gupta, holding that Dayawanti Gupta turned on distinguishing features - an admission under section 132(4) that transactions were not recorded, a year-wise chart of unrecorded transactions, and habitual concealment - none of which was present here. There was no justification for the Assessing Officer to proceed on surmises and estimates. The appeals were dismissed.
The same officer is the Assessing Officer of the searched person and of our client. Does he still have to record a satisfaction note, and does he need two? He must record one, and it must exist before the s.153C proceedings are started. He does not have to write two notes. The single note is recorded in his capacity as the Assessing Officer of the searched person, it is a note about the other person, and it is placed in the other person's file. It does not have to say in terms that the documents do not belong to the searched person.
The document seized is a letter our client wrote to the person searched. Does it belong to our client for s.153C? Not under the pre-amendment wording. A letter written by A to B is B's document, and 'belongs to' is not the same as 'relates to'. The words 'pertains to', which would have caught it, were inserted with effect from 1 June 2015 and operate prospectively, so they do not assist a satisfaction note recorded before that date. Note what that limit attaches to: it is the date of the satisfaction note, not the date of the search. In ITO v. Vikram Sujitkumar Bhatia (SC, 2023) the Supreme Court held the amended provision applies even where the search was conducted before 1 June 2015, if the seized material reaches the Assessing Officer of the other person on or after that date. What survives in ARN is the construction of 'belongs to' and the result on its own facts, the satisfaction note there being dated 21 July 2014; what does not survive is any reading of it as making a pre-2015 search enough to keep a case on the narrow 'belongs to' test. Separately, a document relevant only to one year cannot be used to reopen earlier years.
The department is taxing me on what I admitted in my statement during the search. Can an addition rest on that statement alone? No. The Delhi High Court held that a statement recorded under section 132(4) is not itself "evidence found as a result of search" for the purposes of section 158BB(1). It is information, and it can support a block assessment only so far as it is relatable to incriminating material actually unearthed in the search. A standalone admission, with no document or asset behind it, cannot trigger a block assessment. On the facts, though, the Court found there was such material - a diary of unaccounted sales and books that did not record admittedly cash payments - so the addition of Rs.74 lakh was restored.
Papers of mine were seized in a search on somebody else and I have got notices under section 153C for six years. Which six years, and can completed assessments be reopened when the papers show nothing? It depends, and here the answer was no on both counts. The Delhi High Court held that for a person other than the searched person, the six assessment years under section 153C run from the date the seized material is handed over to his Assessing Officer - here the satisfaction note of 8 September 2010 - not from the date of the search. Assessment years 2003-04 and 2004-05 were therefore outside the section. It further held that completed assessments cannot be reopened where the seized documents have no bearing on those years. The Revenue's appeals were dismissed.
A search was carried out at my premises and the Assessing Officer has reopened six years under section 153A — can he add to years already assessed when nothing incriminating was found? No. The Delhi High Court held on 28 August 2015 that a completed assessment can be interfered with in a section 153A assessment only on the basis of incriminating material unearthed in the search, or undisclosed income or property discovered in it, which was not produced or disclosed in the original assessment. Where an assessment for a year is not pending on the date of the search it does not abate, and in the absence of such material the completed assessment can only be reiterated. Here the assessments for 2002-03, 2005-06 and 2006-07 stood completed, nothing was found, and the deemed dividend and other additions fell.
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.
The search party left our jewellery alone but the AO has still added part of it. Can he do both? No, on these facts, and the reason is wider than the seizure decision. The Rajasthan High Court held that once the Board has expressed the opinion in Instruction No. 1916 that jewellery up to 500 grams for a married lady, 250 grams for an unmarried lady and 100 grams for a male member is not to be seized, it should normally follow that jewellery within those quantities will not be questioned as to its source and acquisition either. Here the family's entitlement was 2,700 grams against 2,202.464 grams found, the authorised officer had seized nothing, and the Assessing Officer's later addition on part of the same jewellery had no basis — he gave no reason for fixing 1,600 grams as the reasonable quantity. The Court preserved the department's power over the excess: jewellery beyond those weights can be questioned and, if not properly explained, treated as unexplained investment.
The department is justifying my search warrant with discrepancies it discovered after the satisfaction note was recorded. Can material found later prop up the authorisation? No. The Gujarat High Court held that material collected after the satisfaction note is recorded and the search authorisation issued cannot be pressed into service to support that authorisation. The Court read the satisfaction note itself, found that the department already knew of the gold, had the lease documents and the assessee's books before it, and that the explanation offered was corroborated by the goldsmiths' statements. There was therefore no material on which a reasonable belief under section 132(1)(c) could be formed. The petitions were allowed and the search and seizure operations were quashed.
I was searched, and my earlier returns had only been processed under section 143(1). Can the Assessing Officer reopen all six years under section 153A and add things that have nothing to do with the search? Yes, section 153A is validly invoked. The Delhi High Court held the Tribunal was wrong to say section 153A cannot be used where the six years' returns had only been processed under section 143(1). Section 153A opens with a non obstante clause that removes the fetters of sections 147, 148, 149, 151 and 153, and it empowers the Assessing Officer to assess or reassess the total income - disclosed and undisclosed - for each of the six years. Pending proceedings abate; completed ones do not, and are simply reopened. The Court expressly left open what happens where no incriminating material at all is found.
A search was carried out on someone else and my agreements were seized. Can the department open six years of my assessments under section 153C when everything was already in my audited books? Yes, it can start the enquiry. The Delhi High Court dismissed the writ petition and held that section 153C(1) requires the searched person's Assessing Officer to be satisfied only that the seized document belongs to another person - not that it discloses undisclosed income of that person. Unlike section 158BD, section 153C does not mention undisclosed income at all. The section is only the first step: the documents go to the other person's Assessing Officer, who then follows the section 153A procedure, and if the returns show the income was accounted for, the proceedings must be closed. Inconvenience is not a ground to strike the machinery down.
My post-search assessment under section 153A was completed without any notice under section 143(2). Does Hotel Blue Moon make that fatal? No. The Delhi High Court held that there is no specific provision in the Act requiring an assessment under section 153A to be preceded by a notice under section 143(2). Hotel Blue Moon turned on clause (b) of section 158BC, which expressly applies sub-sections (2) and (3) of section 143 to a block assessment; section 153A contains no such provision. The words 'so far as may be' in clause (a) of section 153A(1) cannot be stretched to make a section 143(2) notice mandatory, because a specific notice is already required under that clause calling for the return. In any event the two detailed questionnaires issued here served the purpose. The appeal was dismissed.
Does the jewellery instruction explain the source of the gold, or only stop the department seizing it? It explains the source, to the extent of the quantities in it. The Gujarat High Court held that the Board's circular proceeds on recognised customs prevailing in Hindu society, so possession of jewellery within those quantities is taken to be explained unless the Revenue shows otherwise.
The last panchnama only records the seals being broken and my keys being handed back. Does that date start the limitation clock? No. The panchnama that fixes limitation is the one that records the conclusion of a search, and a document drawn up only to give effect to the revocation of a s.132(3) restraint order records no search at all. The Delhi High Court agreed with the Tribunal that such a panchnama is "merely a release order", so the search had concluded on the earlier date and the block assessment was out of time.
A loose sheet seized in the search has bare figures on it and the officer has read '48' as Rs 48 lakhs of undisclosed income. Can that stand without anything more? No. The Delhi High Court upheld the deletion of the Rs 48 lakh addition. There was no material on record to show on what basis the officer concluded that the figure 48 was to be read as Rs 48 lakhs. Following the Supreme Court in CBI v V.C. Shukla, a file of loose sheets is not a book of account, so entries in it are not admissible under section 34 of the Evidence Act, 1872, and the seized annexure was a dumb document leading nowhere. The Court endorsed the Tribunal's view that it was for the Revenue to put life into the document by collecting other relevant and connected material, which it had not done. The appeal was dismissed.
I did not return a receipt because I believe it is not taxable yet. Can the Department search me on the footing that I have undisclosed income? No, not on that basis alone. The Delhi High Court quashed a search authorisation and everything done under it. Undisclosed income means income liable to tax which the assessee has kept back in an effort to escape assessment, knowing it to be taxable. A failure to file a return or to disclose what the Department believes is taxable is not enough. The satisfaction note said only that the family had not been disclosing their true income and wealth, which answers neither clause (b) nor clause (c) of section 132(1). The cash, jewellery and documents seized were ordered returned within two weeks.
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.
The Commissioner (Appeals) annulled the block assessment because no section 143(2) notice was served. Can the department save it by showing the notice was issued? The Patna Tribunal held that it could. It read section 158BC as requiring only the ISSUE of a notice under section 143(2) and not its service, found on the record that a notice had been issued on 20 August 1999 and received at the assessee's address, and added that in any event the assessee's block return, filed after the time allowed, was an invalid return so that no section 143(2) notice was required at all. It set aside the annulment and restored the appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals) to be decided on the merits.
The block return was filed after the time given in the section 158BC notice and the notice under section 143(2) came more than twelve months later. The department says the return was non est. Is it? For a search governed by the 1995 Chapter XIV-B, no. The Pune Tribunal held that there was no provision in the erstwhile section 158BC making a block return filed beyond the time specified in the notice non est, so the belated return was a valid return, the notice under section 143(2) had to issue within twelve months of the end of the month in which it was filed, and a notice issued later made the block assessment null and void. The Tribunal reached that conclusion partly BECAUSE the amended section 158BC, applicable from 1 September 2024, now says expressly that a return furnished beyond the period allowed shall not be deemed to be a return under section 139 — a provision it treated as absent from the earlier law.
Is the mechanical-approval argument under s.153D a certainty? My approval covers several years in one order, given on the day the draft orders went up. It is not a certainty. On facts of exactly that kind — one approval covering multiple assessment years, granted on the same day as or immediately after the Assessing Officer's proposal and with reference to the draft assessment orders — the Ahmedabad Bench found no infirmity in the s.153D approval and dismissed the ground. The library should carry this because the s.153D line is not one-way at Tribunal level.
The addition rests on a pen drive seized in the search and no s.65B certificate was drawn at the time. Does that kill it? No, not on these facts, and the reason is narrower than the headlines. The Commissioner (Appeals) called for a remand report, the Assessing Officer produced a certificate under s.65B(4) for the pen drive, and the assessee - which had never taken the point before the Assessing Officer - made no counter-comment when the certificate was put to it. On the record as the Commissioner (Appeals) found it the certificates had been drawn at the time of the search and were merely produced late. In the absence of any contrary material the addition based on the pen drive was upheld, for all eight years. The order was not otherwise against the assessee: on quantum it confined the tax to the profit element in the unrecorded receipts and directed year-by-year percentages, and on the weighted deduction it allowed the whole of the revenue expenditure for one year.
The section 153D approval for my search assessment carries no DIN, even though the assessment order itself does. Does that invalidate the assessment? Yes, on this Tribunal's view. The Delhi Bench held that CBDT Circular No. 19/2019 requires a computer-generated DIN in the body of every departmental communication issued from 1 October 2019, and that a communication issued without one is invalid and deemed never to have been issued. The approval under section 153D dated 19 February 2021 carried no DIN. Because that approval is the fulcrum on which the final order rests, the Tribunal treated it as non est in law, and quashed the section 153A assessment and the section 156 demand notice built on it. It did not go into the merits.
The 271AAB notice does not say which clause or what rate. Can the penalty survive? No. Section 271AAB contains clauses (a), (b) and (c) with different conditions and different rates, so an omnibus show-cause notice that names neither the clause nor the rate leaves the assessee unable to know the case to be met and denies a real opportunity under s.274. The Tribunal also held, independently, that the levy had no foundation where no statement was recorded under s.132(4) and the returned income was accepted under s.143(3) without any addition.
In my block assessment the officer said my seized books were unreliable, and then taxed the loan entries in those same books as undisclosed income. Can he have it both ways? No. The Chennai Bench deleted the addition of Rs 1.68 crores. An officer who doubts the veracity of the accounts cannot at the same time rely on entries in them to make an addition; that is blowing hot and cold in the same breath. Section 132(4A) requires the contents of books found in a search to be presumed true, so it is not open to the officer to say the loan entries are false, and loans recorded in the books are not undisclosed income within section 158B(b). The estimate that half the remaining creditors were bogus, drawn from an enquiry with four out of 43 whose report was never put to the assessee, was arbitrary. The Rs 50 lakhs admitted on oath, however, could not be retracted.
A search was carried out at my client's premises in March 2025 and the notice quotes section 158BC. My whole file of authority is on section 153A. Which law actually applies to him? Chapter XIV-B, as substituted by section 49 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024 with effect from 1 September 2024. Section 158BA(1) applies the revived Chapter to every search initiated under section 132, and every requisition under section 132A, on or after 1 September 2024, and to nothing earlier. Section 153A cannot apply to him at all: sub-section (1) of that section is by its own words confined to a search initiated after 31 May 2003 but on or before 31 March 2021.
The search on my client began on 12 February 2025 and the last panchnama is dated 9 April 2025. What exactly is the block period, and which date ends it? The block period has two limbs. It is the previous years relevant to six assessment years preceding the previous year in which the search was initiated, PLUS the period starting on 1 April of the previous year in which the search was initiated and ending on the date of execution of the last of the authorisations. On your facts the search was initiated in the previous year 2024-25, so the second limb runs from 1 April 2024 to 9 April 2025 — the date of the last panchnama, not the date the search began and not 31 March 2025.
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'.
My client has a section 158BC notice for a March 2025 search. How long has he got, what happens if he files late, and is there a section 153D approval to attack? The notice must give a period not exceeding sixty days for the block return, and that period can be extended by a further thirty days only in the narrow audit case described in the fifth proviso. If the return goes in after the period allowed, the second proviso says in terms that it 'shall not be deemed to be a return under section 139' — so a late block return is non est, with consequences that run all the way to the notice under section 143(2). There is no section 153D approval in a block assessment; the approvals are elsewhere — section 158BC(3) requires the prior approval of the Additional or Joint Commissioner or Director BEFORE the section 158BC notice is issued, and section 158BG requires the previous approval of the same rank BEFORE the assessment order is passed.
The last panchnama in my client's search is dated 9 April 2025. By when must the block assessment order be passed? Twelve months from the end of the QUARTER in which the last of the authorisations was executed — so, on those facts, from the end of the quarter ending 30 June 2025, which gives 30 June 2026, subject to the exclusions and extensions in the section. The old Chapter ran the period from the end of the MONTH; the substituted section 158BE runs it from the end of the quarter, which can add up to nearly three months to the department's time.
What will a block assessment actually cost my client, and is there any way to keep the penalty off? Tax at sixty per cent of the total undisclosed income of the block period under section 113, plus surcharge under the proviso; interest under section 158BFA(1) at one and a half per cent per month where the block return is late or not filed; and a penalty under section 158BFA(2) of a sum 'equal to fifty per cent of tax so leviable' on the undisclosed income determined by the Assessing Officer. The first proviso to section 158BFA(2) gives complete immunity from that penalty, and from penalty under sections 271AAD(1), 271D, 271DA and 271E for the block period, if four conditions are met — the return was furnished under section 158BC(1)(a), the tax on it was paid or the seized money offered for adjustment, evidence of payment accompanied the return, and no appeal is filed against the assessment of the income shown in the return.
Material seized in someone else's search has been passed to my client's Assessing Officer, who has issued a section 158BC notice. What is my client's block period, and from when does the department's time run? Your client's block period is not computed from his own affairs at all — it is the block period of the searched person. Where there is one specified person relevant to him, the first proviso to section 158BD makes his block period the same as that person's; where there is more than one, it is that of the specified person whose block period ends on the later date. Time for the department runs under section 158BE(3): twelve months from the end of the quarter in which the section 158BC notice was issued to your client.
A search took place in November 2024 while my client's scrutiny assessment for an earlier year was pending. What happens to that assessment, and what happens if the block assessment is later annulled? The pending assessment abates. Section 158BA(2)(a) provides that any assessment, reassessment or recomputation under provisions other than Chapter XIV-B, pertaining to any assessment year falling in the block period and pending on the date of initiation of the search or the making of the requisition, shall abate and be deemed to have abated on that date. If the block proceeding or the block order is later annulled in appeal or other legal proceedings, section 158BA(5) revives the abated proceeding from the date the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner receives the order of annulment — and the revival itself ceases if the annulment is set aside.
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.
What is the department's own position if you were pressured into an admission? That it will be viewed adversely. The Board directed strict compliance with its earlier instructions, told officers to avoid obtaining admissions under pressure, and repeated that the focus must be on gathering evidence.
Are officers allowed to press you for an admission during a search or survey? No. The Board's own instruction says no attempt should be made to obtain a confession as to undisclosed income. Officers are to collect evidence instead, because confessions without credible evidence get retracted and achieve nothing.
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.
Nothing here is written from memory. Every entry was found through a search, and the page for it links to where it was found, so you can check it rather than take our word for it. What has not happened yet is the part that matters most: nobody has read the certified copy of each judgment and signed off the summary against it. Until that is done, each page says Not yet CA-verified, and it means exactly what it says. Read the source before you rely on an entry in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal.