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Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
(Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs)
Instruction No. 03/2020-Customs
New Delhi, Dated the 9th April, 2020
To,
All Principal Chief Commissioners/ Chief Commissioners of Customs/ Customs (Preventive),
All Principal Chief Commissioners/ Chief Commissioners of Customs & Central Tax,
All Principal Commissioners/ Commissioners of Customs/ Customs (Preventive),
All Principal Commissioners/ Commissioners of Customs & Central Tax
Subject: Special Refund and Drawback Disposal Drive - Implementation of decision to
expedite pending refund and drawback claims - reg.
As you are aware, the CBIC has taken a number of measures to mitigate the hardship caused
by the Covid-19 pandemic to the trade and industry and other stakeholders. These measures include
24x7 Customs functioning, single window helpdesk on the CBIC website, waiver of late fee for delays
in filing Bills of Entry, temporarily dispensing with submission of bonds, wherever required, etc.
Continuing with these trade facilitation measures, it has now been decided that all pending Customs
refund and drawback claims shall be expeditiously processed in order to provide immediate relief to the
business entities, especially MSMEs, in these difficult times. This decision has been announced vide
Press Note dated 08th April 2020 issued by the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance.
2. It is hereby instructed that starting with immediate effect there shall be a “Special Refund and
Drawback Disposal Drive” with the objective of priority processing and disposal of all pending refund
and drawback claims. This Special Drive shall be in place till 30.04.2020. It is expected that during this
period all refund and drawback claims that are pending as on 07.04.2020 shall be disposed.
3. The Principal Chief Commissioners/ Chief Commissioners shall monitor the performance on
this front closely on a daily basis and, wherever required, suitably guide the officers concerned to
maximize the disposal. As aforestated, the focus on refunds and drawback is aimed at providing
immediate relief to the business entities, especially MSMEs, which makes it an imperative to ensure
that there are no delays.
4. In this regard, the following may kindly be taken note of:
a. Though the decision to process pending refund claims has been taken with a view to
provide immediate relief to the taxpayers, due diligence is to be done before granting
the refunds and drawback. All the relevant legal provisions, notifications, circulars and
instructions must be followed while processing these claims.
b. For facilitation of exporters, all communication should be done over email, wherever
email id of the applicant is available.
c. All deficiency memos may be reviewed and refund / drawback may be considered on
merit.
5. It is urged that in these difficult times all officers concerned make special efforts to liquidate
the pending refund and drawback claims by 30.04.2020 and make the Special Drive a grand success.
F. No. 450/119/2017-Cus-IV
Yours sincerely,
(Vimal Kumar Srivastava)
Joint Secretary (Customs)
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