DISBURSAL OF REFUNDS OF ALL TAXES BY JURISDICTIONAL OFFICER ONLY - Handbook of GST Law & Procedures (CBIC) [October 2024] - GST

10. DISBURSAL OF REFUNDS OF ALL TAXES BY JURISDICTIONAL OFFICER ONLY. 10.1 CBIC Circular No. 125/44/2019-GST dated 18.11.2019 has clarified that in respect of a refund application assigned to a Central Tax Officer, both the sanction order (FORM GST RFD-04/06 ) and the corresponding payment order (FORM GST RFD-05) for the sanctioned refund amount, under all tax heads, shall be issued by the Central Tax Officer only and vice-versa. 10.2 If a refund application is electronically transmitted to the wrong jurisdictional officer, he/she shall reassign it to the correct jurisdictional officer electronically as soon as possible, but not later than three working days, from the date of generation of the ARN. Deficiency Memo shall not be issued in such cases merely on the ground that the applications were received electronically in the wrong jurisdiction. Facility to reassign such refund applications is already available with the Commissioner or the officer(s) authorized by him. 10.3 The refund application in FORM GST RFD-01 filed by migrated taxpayers should be forwarded for processing by the common portal to the jurisdictional Proper Officer of the tax authority from which the taxpayer has originally migrated. Such officers will continue to process these applications up to the stage of issuance of final order in FORM GST RFD-06 and the related payment order in FORM GST RFD-05 even if the applicant is assigned to the counterpart tax Authority while the refund claim is under processing. However, if such an applicant gets assigned to one of the tax authorities after generation of the ARN and a Deficiency Memo gets issued for the refund application submitted by him, then the re-submitted refund application, after correction of deficiencies, shall be treated as a fresh refund application and shall be forwarded to the jurisdictional Proper Officer of the tax authority to which the taxpayer has now been assigned, irrespective of which authority handled the initial refund claim and issued the Deficiency Memo.