liable to be ignored. Undisputedly, the First Proviso to Section 153C(1), by virtue of a legal fiction enshrined therein requires one to treat the date of initiation of search, and which otherwise constitutes the commencement point for a search assessment in the case of a nonsearched party, to be construed as the date when books of accounts or documents and assets seized or requisitioned are transmitted to the AO of such “ other person ”. Resultantly, the computation of the six preceding AYs’ or the “ relevant assessment year ” in the case of the non-searched entity has to be reckoned from the time when the material unearthed in the search is handed over to the jurisdictional AO. The import of this legal fiction is no longer res integra bearing in mind the judgment of the Supreme Court in CIT v. Jasjit Singh & Ors7 and the whole line of precedents rendered by our High Court which were noticed in Ojjus Medicare Private Limited . Those decisions have consistently held that in the case of a non-searched entity, it is the date of hand over of material, as opposed to that of the actual search which would constitute the starting point for reckoning the block of six or ten AYs’.
