Section 153A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 – Assessment – No income accrued to the assessee based on the documents found during the course of search without bringing any corroborative material, it could not have been taxed in the hands of the assessee.

Facts: The crux of the issue and evidences based on which these appeals rotate are three letters found during the course of search from the laptop of the assessee. Admittedly, the addition has been made only on those documents.

Held, that if there is income element in those documents seized from the possession of the assessee, then there was no requirement of bringing any corroborative material on record. However, there has to be existence of income in the documents seized. If the documents seized does not show any income earned by the assessee, then AO cannot rest on provision of section 292C without bringing any corroborative material on record. Further, the AO did not examine buyers of the property with respect to the commission paid by them to the assessee. Even assessee was also not questioned during the course of search with respect to these three letters. As already held that there is no income accrued to the assessee based on these three documents, without bringing any corroborative material, it could not have been taxed in the hands of the assessee and it was directed to the AO to delete the addition of commission income – SUMMIT MITTAL Vs. DEPUTY CIT [2020] 79 ITR (TRIB) 607 (ITAT-DELHI)