All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (AIFTP) (West Zone) has organized two days virtual National tax conference on the 12th and 13th of September 2020. One of the subjects for discussion was, “Admission and Retraction in Income-tax survey and search, and relevancy of electronic evidence” The session was chaired by Dr. K. Shivaram, Senior Advocate and the paper was presented by Adv. Narayan Jain, Kolkata.

The Learned Speaker Mr. Narayan Jain, Advocate’s lecture/paper can be divided into two parts:

I. Admission and Retraction of Statement in Survey & Search Cases
II. Relevance of Digital Evidence

Part I: Admission and Retraction of Statement in Survey & Search Cases
The speaker addressed the following issues:
1. Cases on Issue of search authorization
2. Recording Statement under Section 132(4) and Presumption under sec. 292C
3. CBDT Instruction dated March 23, 2003
4. Admissions
5. Admissions are not conclusive proof
6. Retraction of Statement
7. Decisions where Retraction of Statement was held VALID
8. Retraction partly accepted
9. Leakage to media will jeopardize investigation, such tendency should be curbed
10. Decisions where Retraction of Statement was NOT ACCEPTED
11. Relevant Points in case a Statement is RETRACTED
12. Mode and Manner of Retraction
13. Burden of Proof lies on the assessee
14. Case laws about head of income under which disclosed income to be considered
15. No Power of confinement/ arrest
16. Deductions permitted from undisclosed income declared by assessee
17. Officers posted in Directorates of Investigation (Investigation Wing) and Commissionerate’s of TDS, only and exclusively shall act as Income-tax Authority for the purposes of power of survey under section 133A and the survey action has to be resorted to only as a last resort.
18. Whether survey be converted into search
19. Sealing of business premises
20. Recording of Telephone conversation/ Statements

Part II: Relevance of Digital Evidence
The speaker addressed the following issues:
1. What is Digital Evidence? And the Relevance of Digital Evidence for the purpose of Income Tax
2. What are Digital Devices
3. Digital Forensics and its significance
4. Branch of Digital Forensics and its Key Elements
5. What Cyber Forensics can reveal to Income Tax Department
6. Digital evidence vis-à-vis the Information Technology Act, 2020
7. The sanctity and relevance of Digital Evidence
8. Importance of standard procedures to deal with Digital Evidences
9. Search and seizure of Physical Evidence vis a vis Digital Evidence
10. Recording of Statement regarding digital evidence
11. Case laws on admissibility of digital evidence

The paper presented on the occasion is attached with this summary

Posted on: November 2nd, 2020