The Jharkhand High Court held that Assessing Officer has the right to control the conduct of cross-examination during the Income Tax Proceedings.
Initially, the Petitioner had filed a writ petition seeking to direct the Revenue to expeditiously dispose of the appeal preferred by the Petitioner against the assessment order dated 30.12.2011 for A.Y. 2010-2011. The said writ petition was disposed of vide order dated 27.01.2022. Thereafter, the petitioner filed seeking expeditious disposal of appeals preferred by the petitioner against the assessment orders for A.Y. 2004- 2005 to A.Y. 2010-2011.
The CIT (A) passed two orders dated 26.12.2013 and 14.08.2014 permitting cross-examination to the petitioner-assessee. Thereafter, the CIT (A), Patna-3 passed orders dated 04.12.2018 and 30.08.2021. Cross-examination of some witnesses was done in the year 2019 and thereafter, no development took place till November 2022, when a summons was issued to the petitioner for cross-examination of witnesses.
When the petitioner participated in the cross-examination process, the Revenue (Respondent No. 4 particularly) started to completely restrict the cross-examination process by denying the relevant questions being asked by the petitioner in the cross-examination. The petitioner raised objections to the same, which objections were disposed of by the Revenue vide order/ letter dated 24.01.2023.
It was viewed that the control of the proceedings lies with the Presiding Officer, the Assessing Officer herein, on how to conduct the cross-examination.
The Appellate Authority issued guidelines that the issue of ‘cross examination’ has not been defined under the Income Tax Act, 1961. The proceeding before the income tax authorities being quasi-judicial in nature, the provisions of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Section 145 of the subject matter of the Indian Evidence Act deals with cross-examination.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Justice Deepak Roshan directed the petitioner to file a petition for recall of the witnesses namely, Rohtas Krishnan, Budh Narayan Gupta, Ajay Bafna and Vikas Sinha who have been cross-examined and discharged, to put them the question which has been initially discarded by the Assessing Officer.
Further held that “the Revenue may also be directed to provide effective cross-examination opportunity by the provisions of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and permit the petitioner to cross-examine such persons who are being named by the witnesses being cross-examined without in any manner interfering or restricting the same. In other words, the Revenue is hereby directed to conduct cross-examination by law and the guidelines as referred to hereinabove.”
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