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"The contention of the ld. DR is that the department relied upon the statement of assessee's own employee, who need not cross-examine its own employee and there is no mistake in not providing opportunity of cross-examination to the assessee. However, we are not in agreement with the contention of the ld. DR. The right to cross-examine is not dependent upon the assessee's relationship with the witnesses. The right to cross- examine depends upon the fact that statement of the party is used against the assessee. Therefore the mere fact that the statement sought to be relied upon by the AO is that of the employee would not disentitle the assessee to cross-examine. Therefore, the ratio relied upon by the assessee squarely applies and it is the prerogative of assessee whether it wants to cross-examine or not. It was held in the case of Smt. Madhu Gupta v. DCIT 2006 (2) TMI 496 - ITAT MUMBAI / [2006] 8 SOT 691 (MUM.) that even if the assessee was provided a copy of the statement recorded by the revenue on the spur of the moment, that should not be treated as an effective opportunity given to the assessee. In that case the Tribunal relied upon the judgment of the Hon'ble Allahabad High Court in the case of Gargi Din Jwala Prasad v. CIT [1974] 96 ITR 97 (All) wherein it was held that permission to cross-examine witness given, but names of the witnesses and substance of the statement made by them not given is not a proper opportunity and on that ground assessment was vitiated by the principles of natural justice as permission to cross-examine all ITA No.1375 to 1378/Bang/2016 the witnesses are illusory. Further in the present case, these seized material A/DUU/1 to 4 though did not contain the name of assessee or signature of any person, they are merely unsubstantiated loose sheets. As held by the Tribunal in the case of ACIT v. Layers Exports P. Ltd [2017] 53 ITR (Trib) 416 (Mumbai), addition cannot be sustained merely on the basis of rough noting made on few loose sheets, unless AO brings on record some independent and corroborative material to prove irrefutably that the said noting revealed unaccounted income or unaccounted investment or unaccounted expenditure of the assessee. The very purpose of search concluded u/s. 132 is to unearth hidden income or property or get hold of books of account or documents which has not been or will not be otherwise produced by the assessee in regular course on issue of summons or notice. In the assessee's case, as stated above, the purported search action did not lead to discovery of any unaccounted money, bullion, jewellery or other valuable article or thing. Further, no books of account revealing any undisclosed transactions of the assessee were found during the course of search. The entire assessment order revolves around scribbling in loose sheets of papers seized from premises of another person in course of search action on such other person. It is a fact that the said rough loose sheets of papers scribbled by some anonymous person and seized in course of search of another person cannot be termed as 'documents' having any evidentiary value within the meaning of section 132 or section 132A of the Act. Thus, the entire assessment u/s 153A of the Act in case of the assessee rests on shaky and incorrect foundation and thus deserves to be quashed.

29. In the present case, as stated above, the purported search action did not leadto discovery of any unaccounted money, bullion, jewellery or other valuable article or thing. Further, no books of accounts or any undisclosed transaction of the assessee were found during the course ITA No.1375 to 1378/Bang/2016 of search. The entire assessment order revolve around scribbling in loose sheet of paper received from assessee in course of such action. It is the fact that the said rough loose sheet on paper scribbled by some anonymous person seized in the course of search cannot be termed as 'document' having any evidentiary value within the meaning of sec. 132 or sec.132(A) of the Act. Thus, entire addition made at Rs.25 lakhs in the case of assessee in these assessment years is incorrect and thus to be deleted.

30. In our opinion, the loose sheet found during the course of search are undated and did not bare the signature of the assessee or any other person. Hence, they are not in the nature of self speaking documents having no evidentiary value and cannot be taken as sole basis of determination of undisclosed income of the assessee. When document like loose sheets of paper are recovered and the revenue wants to make use of it, the onus is on the revenue to collect cogent evidence to corroborate the noting. The revenue has failed to corroborate the noting by bringing some cogent material on record to prove conclusively that the noting in the seized paper reveled the unaccounted income of the ITA No.1375 to 1378/Bang/2016 assessee. Further, no circumstantial evidence in the form of any unaccounted cash, jewelry or investment outside the books of account was found in the course of search action in the case of assessee. Thus, the impugned addition was made by the AO on gross relief in advocate material or rather no sufficient material at all and as such neither to be deleted. We are of the view that an assessment carried out in pursuance of such action, no addition can be made on the basis of un-corroborative noting and scribbling on loose paper made by unidentified person having no evidentiary value, is unsubstantiated and is bad in law.

ITA No.1375 to 1378/Bang/2016

3) the seized material are in the form of various loose sheets, scribbling and jottings having no signature or authorization from the assessee's side. These are unsubstantiated documents and there is nothing to suggest any undisclosed assets of assessee found during the course of search. More so, search action not resulted in recovery of any undisclosed assets in the form of landed property, building, investments, money, bullion, jewellery or any kind of movable or immovable assets.