Circular No. 33dated 18^th June 1999

In supersession of the Office Memorandum dated 8th October, 1996, the Hon'ble FM has approved the following guidelines for consideration of request for exemption from Customs duty under section 25(2) of the Customs Act, 1962, as amended by the Finance Act, 1999: -

(a)       Imports of secret goods by Government.

(b)     Imports for India's defence need relating only to military hardware and software or for R & D units under the DRDO may be allowed free of duty.

(c)     Imports by Central Police Organisations for equipping their forces may be allowed free of duty.

(d)     State Police Organisations may be allowed to import free of duty equipments required for anti-terrorism and intelligence work.

(e)     Imports by Charitable Institutions, which are providing all their services free where the imports are required for, use in hospitals, educational institutions, etc. may be allowed free of duty.

         The imports by these charitable organisations should fulfil the following conditions:

(i)      The imports should be received as donations or gifts and the donor should be known institution, but not an individual, say a society or a foundation. No payment for imports should be involved.

(ii)     The recipients should also be an institution/ organisation, but not an individual, which is registered as a charitable organisation.

(iii)    The said organisation/ institution should be providing servicing such as running hospitals, educational institutions etc., on either �free� or no loss or no profit basis.

(iv)    The charitable nature of the organisation and the fact of rendering services on 'free' or 'no loss no profit 'basis should be certified by the concerned district authorities.

(v)        The organisation/ institution should certify that the goods under import

2.      All ad-hoc exemption from duty to non-governmental organisation will be issued subject to the conditions that the imported goods will not be put to any commercial use and will not be sold, gifted or parted by the imported in any manner without the prior permission of the Ministry of Finance. The imported goods will be kept available for inspection by Customs Officers.

3.      Import of goods, which are not covered in any of the categories mentioned in para 1, will not be considered for grant of ad-hoc exemption under section 25(2) of the Customs Act, 1962.

4.      Ministries/ Departments may please bring these guidelines to the notice of all concerned, and direct them to submit their request for customs duty exemption in accordance with the aforementioned guidelines.