Held that the plea of the assessee that in the absence of any incriminating material found during the course of search proceedings, no additions could be made under section 153A of the Act could not be accepted. This was not a case where no incriminating material was found. Several incriminating materials were seized which included blank letter heads of various persons, blank cheques, and notes and diaries containing details of payments received and transferred. Evidence relating to unexplained investment made in cash towards the purchase of immovable properties was also seized. The plea was also to be rejected as there was no requirement of incriminating material to assess or reassess the income of the assessee after search proceedings. Therefore, even if it were to be accepted that no incriminating material was found, the argument of the assessee would have to be rejected. That the assessee could e-verify his return of income within one hundred and twenty days from the date of his filing. In the case at hand, the assessment was framed within forty-five days from the date of filing of the return of income, treating the return of income as invalid. This action of the Assessing Officer could not be held to be justified. This was further supported by the fact that the Centralised Processing Centre received the manual acknowledgment for filing the return and treated the return as being valid. Section 144 of the Act makes it incumbent on the part of the Assessing Officer to give the assessee an opportunity to be heard before proceeding with the assessment on best judgment basis. However, no such opportunity was given and no notice under section 143(2) of the Act had ever been issued to the assessee. Besides the initial notice under section 142(1) of the Act, no further show-cause notice was issued which ran contrary to section 144 of the Act. Mandatory statutory notice under section 143(2) of the Act had not been issued by the Assessing Officer either which would invalidate the assessment proceedings. It is a pre-condition to issue a notice under section 143(2) of the Act irrespective of whether the assessment has been framed under section 143(3) or under section 144. The absence of a notice under section 143(2) was not a defect which would be curable under section 292BB of the Act, and this resulted in the assessment being treated as void. Therefore, none of the conditions for invoking jurisdiction under section 144 of the Act was satisfied. The assessee had filed a valid return of income and no notice under section 143(2) was issued before making the assessment. This was a non-curable defect. The assumption of jurisdiction and the subsequent order passed under section 144 of the Act were bad in law. That although the challenge to the transfer of jurisdiction was sub judice at the time of framing of the assessment, at that time, no stay was in operation and the Assessing Officer was under no obligation to keep the assessments in abeyance. Accordingly, the plea of the assessee that the assessments were invalid on that ground was rejected.That statements were recorded by the Investigation Wing in the course of the search from various persons. These statements were used to support the additions. However, no independent investigation or verification was done by the Assessing Officer and no opportunity to cross-examine these witnesses was provided to the assessee in the assessment proceedings. The statements of the land owners and contractors were never even confronted to the assessee at any stage of the proceedings. The assessee came to know of all these statements for the first time after the receipt of the assessment orders. During remand proceedings before the Assessing Officer consequent to orders of the Commissioner (Appeals), summonses were issued selectively and three persons were cross-examined by the assessee. All three persons denied the contents of their alleged earlier statements.. Weight could not be given to such statements and the statements alone would not be sufficient to support the additions. That the additions have been made by invoking the provisions of section 68, 69 or 69A to 69D of the Act. No substantive additions of this kind could have been made in the hands of the assessee on aggregate basis without establishing that the assessee was the de facto owner of the bank accounts in Nagaland or the bank accounts of the recipients. No nexus between the assessee and those bank accounts had been established by the lower authorities. In these circumstances, the onus of the assessee remained confined to the credits received by the assessee in his own books of account and not any further. The assessee’s onus under section 68 in respect of entries in the books or bank accounts of other persons is only secondary, i. e., consequential upon the successful discharge of the primary onus on the Assessing Officer of establishing the assessee to be the actual owner of the books of account or bank accounts held in the names of other persons. Therefore, the credits appearing in the other bank accounts could not be held to be income of the assessee. That section 68 of the Act requires the assessee to prove the identity of the payees, their creditworthiness and the genuineness of the transactions. With respect to these entities or individuals, copies of the permanent account numbers and Aadhar, Income-tax exemption certificates issued under section 10(26) of the Act, copies of work orders issued by the Government, copies of immovable property ownership certificates, audited financial statements, turnover certificates and affidavits affirming the transactions were placed on record. Undisputedly, the sources of such loans were Government contractual receipts as held by the Assessing Officer himself. It was quite evident that the parties in question were engaged as Government contractors for several years and were executing voluminous contracts for the Government. Undisputedly, the transactions had taken place through banking channels. It could thus be said that the onus of the assessee under section 68 of the Act was duly discharged. It was thus the onus of the Revenue to dislodge the same. No cogent material or evidence was on the record so as to dislodge the claim of the assessee. The additions were based more on allegations, surmises, conjectures and mere suspicion. These amounts could thus not be considered to be the assessee’s undisclosed income. (AY. 2012-13 to 2018-19)