Introduction of new facility for payment of refund amount directly to Importers Bank Accounts instead of by way of issuing of cheques reg. - Customs - 16/2010

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS (IMPORT) JAWAHARLAL NEHRU CUSTOM HOUSE, SHEVA TAL URAN, DIST RAIGAD, MAHARASHTRA 400707 F. No. S/26-Misc-37/2009-10 CRC IIA JNCH Date: 16.02.2010 FACILITY NOTICE NO. 16/2010 SUB: Introduction of new facility for payment of refund amount directly to Importers Bank Accounts instead of by way of issuing of cheques reg. Attention of all concerned is drawn to the Standing Order No. 01/2009 Dated 02/02/2009 and Public Notice No. 91/2009 Dated 30/11/2009 regarding procedure for payment of SAD refund amount in pursuance of Notification No.102/2007 Customs dated 14.09.2008. As per existing procedure, once the refund is sanctioned by the Astt./Dy. Commissioner and the Order-in-Original is issued, the T.A./S.T.A. prepares the R.O.(Refund Order) in the prescribed format and submits it to the A.O./Supdt. for signature. Thereafter, the R.O.s is handed over to the applicant or his authorized person or is dispatched by Speed Post. The applicant puts his signature on the R.O. on a revenue stamp as a token of pre-receipt of the refund amount and gets his signature attested from his banker. On presentation of R.O, for payment, the accounts deptt. prepares a cheque for the payment. 2. The present procedure of issuing of R.O., its receipt back from the applicant and dispatch of cheque takes about one month on average. Apart from this there are occasions where cheques are returned back by the postal authorities owing to the address being of importers godown or incomplete or changed. Also many a times there are cases of signature mismatch or human errors in writing of amount in words or figures or other particulars on the cheques. Further, the cheques exceeding certain value rquire verification from RBI. All these factors lead to considerable delay in realization of the refund amount by the claimants. To avoid hardship to the claimants on this account, a facility for payment of SAD refund amount directly to Importers Bank Accounts instead of by way of cheques is being introduced in the Jawaharlal Nehru Custom House, Nhava Sheva. 3. The salient features of the new facility are as under- (i) The facility is optional. The claimants who do not want to avail the facility will receive the refund amount through cheque as per the existing procedure. (ii) The facility shall be available in respect of refund claims filed after issuance of this facility notice. However, the facility could be extended to past claims where Refund Orders have not been issued and the claimants make a specific request with necessary authorization. (iii) The claimants who desire to avail the facility shall provide an authorization in duplicate in the format annexed to this notice. (iv) Their shall be no change in the existing procedure till the refund is sanctioned and the Order-in-Original for refund is issued. However, under the new facility the Refund Orders would bear a remark as For payment of refund amount to Importers Bank Account and it would not be handed over or dispatched to the applicant or his authorized person but would be forwarded to the Cash Accounts Branch alongwith the authorization letter from importer and the refund file. Cash Accounts Branch would verify that no payment has been made in the past, prepare a scroll of Refund Orders received on a particular day and forward the scroll to the State Bank of India, Nhava Sheva on the next working day, in a soft copy and a hard copy under signature of the CAO, along with a cheque for the consolidated refund amount. (v) Upon receipt of the scroll and the cheque for the consolidated refund amount, the Bank would make payment to the respective claimants in their accounts through NEFT/RTGS after deducting their service charge at the rate of 0.09% and NEFT/RTGS charges as per RBI guide lines and would intimate the importer concerned about the payment through e-mail. Presently the NEFT/RTGS service charges are- ₹ 5/- per transaction for an amount upto ₹ 1 lakh, ₹ 25/- per transaction for an amount above ₹ 1 lakh upto ₹ 5 lakhs and ₹ 50/- per transaction for an amount over ₹ 5 lakhs. 4. With introduction of above facility, which has been discussed in the PTFC meeting held at JNCH on 11/02/2010 and was widely welcomed by all members present in the meeting, it is expected that the time for payment of refund amount to the claimant will come down significantly and all the claims for refund of SAD will be settled on FIFO basis within stipulated period of three months from the date of submission of claims, complete with all the prescribed documents as per Public Notice Nos. 43/2008 dated 06/06/2008 and 04/2009 date 02/02/2009. In view of this, it is requested that the claimants and their representatives will not crowd in the Refund Section or pressurize the officers for early settlement of their claims. In case a claim is not received within 75 days of its submission, the claimants or their representatives may send an email to the concerned Assistant/Dy. Commissioner of Centralized Refund Cell CRC IIA (Email Id- [email protected]) or CRC IIB (Email Id- [email protected]) with a copy to the Commissioner (Import) (Email Id- [email protected]). 5. The optional facility for payment of refund amount directly to Bank Accounts instead of by cheques shall be available in other than SAD Refund cases also. 6. The contents of this Facility Notice may be brought to the notice of all the members of the trade, importers and their agents. (A. K. Das) Commissioner of Customs (Import)