IT Dept To Search Social Media Accounts? Clarity Inside

Earlier, in the day today, there were several speculations about the Indian government, authorising the IT department to be search social media accounts for possible tax evasion.

However, this was quickly miss represented by several Media channels as they reported that the IT department would be randomly checking social media handles.

The latest clarification from the concerned authorities is that the IT department will be able to search only the accounts of suspected individuals who have incredible evidence against them for tax evasion.

The provisions of section 247 of the Income Tax Act 2025 are strictly limited to Search and Survey operations. Unless a taxpayer is undergoing a formal search operation due to evidence of significant tax evasion, the department has no power to access their private digital spaces.

The powers cannot be used for routine information gathering/processing, or even for cases under scrutiny assessment. These measures are specifically designed to target black money and large-scale evasion during search and survey, not the everyday law-abiding citizen

The power to seize documents and evidence during search and survey operations has existed since the 1961 Act. this would essentially mean that there is no new deformation to this circulation and only the social media accounts of suspected individuals were already under investigation will be cross checked.