Discovery and production powers: tax authorities may compel evidence and attendance, subject to limited retention safeguards.
The provision confers court-like powers on enumerated income-tax authorities to compel discovery, attendance, examination on oath, production of books and issuance of commissions for tax purposes; it allows certain authorities to exercise these powers even absent pending proceedings, ties investigative authority for senior officers to a jurisdictional nexus and suspicion of concealment, and authorises impoundment and, in the Act, explicit custody and retention of documents subject to a fifteen-day initial limit, recorded reasons and prior sanction for extensions.