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Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
(Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs)
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Instruction No. 10/2021-Customs
New Delhi, Dated the 13th May, 2021
To,
All Principal Chief Commissioner/Chief
Commissioner of Customs/Customs (Preventive)
All Principal Chief
Commissioner/Chief Commissioner of Customs & Central Tax
All Principal
Commissioner/ Commissioner of Customs & Customs (Preventive)
All Principal
Commissioner/ Commissioner of Customs & Central Tax
Subject: Special
Refund and Drawback Disposal Drive from 15.05.2021 to 31.05.2021 –
Implementation of – reg.
Madam/Sir,
As you are aware, the CBIC has
throughout been in the forefront of our fight against Covid-19 pandemic. The
measures put in place for this include 24×7 Customs functioning, single window
helpdesk, nodal officers at all locations, relaxing requirement of submission of
bond and replacing it with undertaking, exemption from Customs duty and IGST on
specified COVID-19 material donated from abroad, expeditious Customs clearance
for all COVID-19 related imports made by Red Cross Society, etc. Further, last
year, difficulties of liquidity during COVID-19 were sought to be ameliorated by
having a Special Drive from 08.04.2020 to 30.04.2020 for priority disposal of
pending Customs refund, IGST refund and Customs Duty Drawback claims. This
Special Drive was governed by Instructions No.03/2020-Customs and
No.2/1/2020-GST, both dated 09.04.2020.
2. Continuing with the
aforementioned trade facilitation measures, the Board has decided that there is
a need to focus on timely disposal of all pending refund/duty drawback claims in
order to provide immediate relief to the business entities, especially MSMEs, in
these difficult times. Accordingly, it is hereby instructed that 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 from 15th May 2021 to 31st May 2021. It is expected that
during this period all refund and drawback claims that are pending as on 14th
May 2021 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. Further, it is important to coordinate this Special Drive with the
major trade and industry associations (especially those that cater to exporters)
for their assistance including submission of required documents from their
members (if a claim is pending for want of a required document).
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.
d. The Special Drive should be widely publicized.
5. It is urged that in
these difficult times all officers concerned make special efforts to liquidate
the pending refund and drawback claims by 31.05.2021 and make the Special Drive
a grand success.
Yours faithfully,
F. No. 450/119/2017-Cus-IV
(R. Ananth)
Deputy Secretary (Customs)
Email : dircus@nic.in
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