List of commodities notified under SCRA now governs commodity derivatives trading; exchanges must amend rules and notify members.
The Central Government, in consultation with SEBI, notified a Schedule of goods under clause (bc) of section 2 of the SCRA, bringing an extensive list of agricultural, industrial and energy commodities within SCRA coverage for commodity derivatives. Commodity derivatives traded on recognised exchanges shall be governed by the SCRA and associated rules. Exchanges must amend byelaws, notify members, publish on websites and report implementation status to SEBI.

Options in commodity derivatives permitted, subject to SEBI approval and exchange amendments and compliance with disclosure requirements.
Commodity Derivatives Exchanges are permitted to introduce trading in options as a new derivative class to develop the market. Exchanges must obtain prior SEBI approval, amend relevant bye-laws, notify members and publish provisions on their websites, and report implementation status to SEBI. The circular is effective immediately and issued under Section 11(1) of the SEBI Act to promote market development and protect investor interests.

Scrutiny notices under section 143(2) must be issued before time barring for PANs selected in CASS.
Generation of scrutiny notices under section 143(2) is required for PANs selected by CASS-2016 and must be completed before the time-bar date; 991 selected PAN cases had not received notices, including cases tied to inactive or old/defunct AO codes and AO codes lacking employee numbers, and authorities are directed to migrate PANs to correct active jurisdictions and review AO assignments so notices can be issued on time.

Discontinuation of manual debits on physical Advance Authorizations; EDI debits must be verified and Advice Letter process used.
Manual debits on physical copies of Advance Authorizations registered at Customs EDI locations shall be discontinued; examining officers granting Out of Charge must verify that the authorization debit is recorded in the EDI system. For domestic sourcing or ARO/invalidation requests post discontinuation, holders must obtain an Advice Letter from the Group DC/AC (issued and updated same day), which will be emailed to the Regional Authority to enable issuance of AROs. Commissioners must designate monitoring officers, apply safeguards for manual clearance during EDI breakdowns with subsequent EDI debit entry, and circulate Public Notices and Standing Orders; TRA use for non EDI ports remains unaffected.

Regional office inclusion changes territorial jurisdiction, reallocating district coverage and adjusting administrative authority under Foreign Trade Policy.
The Director General of Foreign Trade includes a new Regional Office of DGFT at Belagavi in Appendix - 1A of the Foreign Trade Policy and assigns it territorial jurisdiction over Belagavi, Bagalkot, Dharwad, Uttara Kannada and Bijapur. Consequentially, the territorial jurisdiction of the Regional Authority, Bangalore, is reallocated to cover the rest of Karnataka excluding the districts allocated to the Belagavi Regional Office.

Export obligation period clarified for fabrics under Special Advance Authorization Scheme; obligation counted from issue of authorisation.
The public notice corrects a reference date in an earlier notice and amends Appendix 4J to state that the export obligation period for fabrics (including interlining) under the Special Advance Authorization Scheme is to be measured from the date of issue of the authorisation, not from the date of import clearance, and that further extensions are governed by the extension provisions of the Handbook of Procedures.

CXL quota export allocation: preferential sugar exports permitted with Certificate of Origin, duty conditions and reporting obligations under export policy.
Allocation permits preferential sugar exports to the EU under the CXL concession subject to the Foreign Trade Policy conditions and applicable export duty; release for free circulation requires a Certificate of Origin issued by the Additional Director General of Foreign Trade, Mumbai, with the EUR form endorsed by Customs at the port, and exporters must comply with existing reporting and procedural requirements.

PAN requirement: manual declarations accepted with PAN application details, Form-2 issued after PAN allotment, time limit reset.
Assessees without PAN may file manual declarations before the jurisdictional Principal Commissioner/Commissioner by quoting the date and acknowledgment number of their PAN application; such declarations must be accepted, but Form-2 will be issued only after PAN allotment and the time limit for issuance runs from the allotment date. Declarations are invalid if PAN is not allotted due to the declarant's non compliance.

Authorized Economic Operator programme expands facilitation: direct port clearance, deferred duty payment, paperless trade benefits.
The Accredited Client Programme is merged into a three tier Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) programme expanding eligibility to small and medium entities and adding operational facilitation: Direct Port Delivery and Direct Port Entry, request based on site inspections, acceptance of self certified origin documents, paperless declarations, deferred payment of duties, faster drawback and refund processing, and pursuit of Mutual Recognition Agreements with other customs administrations.

Algorithmic trading rules: exchanges must enforce system capacity, risk controls, order-to-trade penalties, audits and reporting.
Algorithmic trading-orders generated by automated execution logic-is subject to operational, risk-management and surveillance requirements. Exchanges must ensure system capacity and upgrades, classify and route algorithmic orders through member servers, prohibit strategies and access that harm price discovery or disadvantage members, and impose multi-layered order-level risk controls including limits on order types, price, size and position. Members need prior exchange approval, real-time monitoring, audit trails, empanelled system audits and unique order identifiers; exchanges must limit order rates, apply economic disincentives for excessive order-to-trade activity, detect dysfunctional algorithms and report metrics and incidents to the regulator.

Position limits for commodity derivatives mandate client/member caps, clubbing rules, monitoring and value based penalties to protect market integrity.
Establishes position limits for commodity derivatives at client, member and exchange levels, with client numerical limits per commodity and member limits set as multiples of client limits or proportions of market wide open interest; prescribes aggregation and netting rules differing for agricultural and non agricultural contracts, near month limits for agricultural contracts, mandatory clubbing of linked positions subject to limited exemptions, real time monitoring, a value and duration based monetary penalty regime, exchange authority to square off excess positions and suspend persistent violators, and requirements for exchanges to amend rules, notify members and report implementation.

Warehousing norms revised: enhanced accreditation, financial security and inspection standards to secure good delivery in commodity derivatives markets.
SEBI prescribes minimum exchange-level standards to ensure guarantee for settlement of trades including good delivery by accrediting WSPs, warehouses and assayers through transparent selection and renewal; imposing paid-up capital and net worth criteria, refundable security deposits and tiered Financial Security Deposits with prescribed asset forms and concentration limits; mandating insurance on replacement value; requiring SOPs, KYD, PAN disclosures, staff training and prohibition on trading by WSP management; and establishing periodic independent inspections, audit disclosure, cancellation and continuity procedures.

Information sharing on defaulter members: automatic cross-exchange defaulter recognition and action against associated parties required.
When a member is declared a defaulter, the declaring Exchange/Clearing Corporation must immediately declare it a defaulter in all its segments and inform other Exchanges/Clearing Corporations of the member's identifying details; on receipt, those other Exchanges/Clearing Corporations must immediately declare the member a defaulter across their segments. Exchanges/Clearing Corporations must take appropriate action against associates of the defaulter, where associate covers control relationships, substantial shareholding, and overlapping directors or partners, with "control" as defined under takeover regulations.

Market disclosure obligations require exchanges to publish comprehensive member, client and contract trading data and disciplinary information online.
SEBI mandates that commodity derivative exchanges publish on their websites daily anonymous top-ten client positions, hedgers' delivery intent, pre-market disclosure of algorithmic trading share, ten-day post-settlement pay-in/pay-out for top clients, monthly member proprietary position percentages and margins, member data in a prescribed format, contract life-cycle trading metrics per Annexure-II, quarterly settlement fund breakdowns, lists of approved surrenders and detailed disclosures for suspended or expelled members; exchanges must amend rules, notify members and report implementation to SEBI.

Portfolio management services restriction continues: PMS remains prohibited in commodity derivatives pending regulatory review and dissemination.
Portfolio management services (PMS) remain prohibited in the commodity derivatives market pending SEBI review through the continuance of existing FMC directives; PMS is therefore not permissible. The circular takes effect from its stated date, supersedes earlier FMC directives on PMS, is issued under Section 11(1) of the SEBI Act for investor protection and market regulation, and requires commodity exchanges to notify members and publish the circular on their websites.

Income Declaration Scheme: filing hours extended - paper counters to remain open until the filing deadline for declarations.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes directed that declarations under the Income Declaration Scheme may be submitted online or in printed prescribed form until the close of the filing period, and instructed all Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax to ensure counters and local arrangements are available to receive paper declarations until that time.

Spread margin benefits: special margin shall not be levied on spread trades, with the exemption retained and continued by regulator.
The circular affirms that the erstwhile FMC circulars prescribing that special margin shall not be levied on spread trades shall continue in force beyond the transitional repeal period, and directs exchanges to notify members and disseminate the provision on their websites.

Fair market value rule: undisclosed income represented by assets measured by FMV on 01.06.2016, cash included.
Undisclosed income represented by investment in any asset shall be deemed to be the fair market value as on 01.06.2016 for the purposes of the Income Declaration Scheme, 2016; cash in hand is an asset. Treating original investment plus capital gains from a pre-01.06.2016 sale (with proceeds held in cash) as the amount to be declared is not in accordance with the Scheme and Board clarifications.

Enhanced supervision of stock brokers: exchanges must monitor client funds, enforce account nomenclature and trigger alerts for misuse.
Stock Exchanges and Depositories must enforce prescribed account nomenclature and prompt reporting by brokers, implement a weekly-data based monitoring mechanism calculating reconciliation metrics (G, H, I, J) to detect misuse of client funds, and act on alerts by seeking clarifications, conducting inspections and initiating remedial steps. Brokers must comply with internal audit rotation and reporting rules, submit standardized financial statements and indicators, upload monthly client-wise fund and securities balances to exchanges, follow rules on pledging client securities, and observe prescribed running account settlement and PAN disclosure requirements.

Re issuance of legacy FMC norms: exchanges must disclose terminal disablements, set delivery timelines and collect extreme loss margin.
SEBI re issues FMC norms requiring exchanges to disclose member terminal disablements quarterly, set and publish timelines for submission and modification of delivery intentions, and determine and disclose location premium/discount prior to contract launch. SEBI clarifies that extreme loss margin must be collected upfront alongside initial margin and that the specified penalty structure for short collection/non collection applies from T day to ELM as well as initial margin. Exchanges must notify members and publish these provisions on their websites.