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5. Aggrieved by the order of the AO, the assessee preferred an appeal before the Ld. CIT(A) challenging the addition on the ground of no incriminating material found during the course of search and also challenging the exercise of power conferred under 4th proviso to section 153 of the Act for reopening the 8th year i.e. AY 2014-15 and 9th year i.e. for AY 2013-14 which were beyond six years but within ten years. The assessee submitted before the AO that the reopening of 8th and 9th year is invalid and against the facts on record as AO did not have other books of account which revealed that any income represented in the form of assets had escaped assessment. It was also stated that the definition of assets as contained in sec. 153A of the Act does not include unsecured loans which was also contended before the Ld. CIT(A). The alleged statements of entry operators/ dummy directors were recorded behind the back of the assessee ITA Nos. 20 - 22/Kol/2024& ITA Nos. 57 & 58/Kol/2024 PGI distributors Pvt. Ltd.

"4.4(a) I have carefully considered the facts of the case and submission of the appellant. Perusal of the assessment order shows that in the initial part of the order, AO has mentioned that during the course of search operation, several incriminating documents were seized. It is further mentioned that during the course of search operation and post search enquiries, it is seen that some of the materials seized during the course of search operation belongs/pertains to the assessee. These evidences point out that assessee group has brought back its own unaccounted income in the form of bogus unsecured loan by layering the transaction through several paper/shell companies. However, A.O. has not referred to any such evidences in the assessment order. Assessment order does not mention any incriminating evidences found during search. Although several documents were seized during search but AO. has not discussed the contents of any such seized documents which he considers to be incriminating. Rather, he has relied on statements of various persons, recorded during post search enquiry, to make addition. In the assessment order, AO has reproduced some extracts from the statement of Mr. Mahesh Pansari and Mr. Siddharth Pansari, directors in group companies. However, perusal of these statements do not indicate that they have accepted any wrong doing on their part. They have not mentioned anywhere that loans taken by their group concerns were not genuine. They have stuck to their stand that all the loans are genuine. Next, A.O has referred to the statements of Shri Mantosh Yadav which was recorded on 16- 02-2021 u/s.131 of the Act and the statement of Shri Pritam Ghosh, which was recorded on 22-02-2021 u/s.131 of the Act. In their statements these two persons have accepted that they are dummy directors but at the same time they also mentioned that they are not fully aware about the transactions conducted through the said companies, as they have been acting on the instructions of Shri B.L. Mittal and Shri Pradip Kr. Chowdhury. Statement of another dummy director, Shri Gopal Maity was also recorded on 22-02-2021 u/s.131 of the I.T. Act. In his statement Mr. Malty stated that he was controlled by entry operator, Shri Jivendra Mishra and Shri Sagarmal Nahata. Similarly, statement of another dummy director, Shri Radha Kant ITA Nos. 20 - 22/Kol/2024& ITA Nos. 57 & 58/Kol/2024 PGI distributors Pvt. Ltd.

AYs 2013-14 to 2017-18 Tiwari was also recorded on 22-02-2021 u/s.131 of the Act. He had acted on the introductions of Shri Sagarmal, entry operator. Perusal of these statements revealed that in the first place, the statement of dummy directors do not appear to have been confronted to the entry operators (their handlers) and neither to the directors of the assessee group. Secondly, these statements were recorded almost one & half months after the date of search. While recording the statement there is no reference to any incriminating evidences found during the course of search which needed to be confronted to these persons. In their statement the dummy directors have provided only generalized information without providing any specific information about the group concerns. In any case the statement given by dummy directors are not supported by any incriminating evidence found during search and neither these were confronted to the director of assessee group.

AYs 2013-14 to 2017-18 interpretation of incriminating evidences on the basis of circumstantial evidences and deductions based on his understanding. There is no reference to any direct incriminating evidences found during the search. On the contrary there are a number of judgments, some of which are discussed in the preceding paras, which are directly on the issue as to what is to what is to be considered as incriminating evidences found during search. Even statements of the Directors/Main person of the entities, recorded u/s.132(4) of the I,T. Act, 1961 are not considered incriminating if these are not corroborated by direct evidences found during search. In the present case, A.O. has referred to statements of some of the dummy directors. But these were recorded during post search inquiries. Dummy directors have provided only generalized information and they have admitted that they are not fully aware of entire transaction. These statements do not appear to have been confronted to their handler entry operators and neither to the directors of the assessee group. Appellant alleges that even copies of these statement were not provided for rebuttal, leave along the opportunity to cross examine such persons. Under the circumstances, these are of no evidentiary value, as held by several courts. Further, in the assessment order for the current year, 'names of different entry operators have been mentioned who are alleged to have arranged the loans. However, none of them appear to have been examined even during post search enquiries.