Designation of Additional and Deputy/Assistant Commissioners as CPIOs and First Appellate Authorities under RTI procedure.
Specified Additional and Deputy/Assistant Commissioners are designated as the Central Public Information Officer and First Appellate Authority for the Commissionerate of Customs (Airport & Administration), Kolkata, under section 5(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, with officers, charges and jurisdictions listed in an annexure; appeals from CPIO decisions may be filed with the First Appellate Authority within the Commissionerate.

Drawback election bars IGST refund where exporter declared higher drawback and thereby relinquished any IGST refund claim.
Where exporters elected composite or higher drawback rates and made the prescribed electronic or manual declarations on the shipping bill, they relinquished any IGST refund claim; shipping bills are treated as the statutory drawback claim and required EDI/manual declarations must be made when suffixing drawback serial numbers to claim composite rates.

GST TDS accounting clarified: a dedicated PAO suspense sub head enables DDOs to account bunched TDS and report implementation issues.
The circular amends the accounting treatment for GST TDS by opening a dedicated sub head "08 GST TDS" under Major Head 8658.00.101 - PAO Suspense, with reduced accounting code 86580344 and SCCD code 367, enabling DDOs to account for bunched TDS under Option II; implementation difficulties are to be reported to the Taxation Department, Mizoram.

SION amendment expands allowable import input to include Lauryl Myristyl Alcohol alongside Lauryl Alcohol for export input norms.
Amendment to SION A-1486 alters import item 1 description from Lauryl Alcohol to Lauryl Alcohol/Lauryl Myristyl Alcohol for Sodium Lauryl Sulphate 90%; allowed input quantities against 1 kg export are: Lauryl Alcohol/Lauryl Myristyl Alcohol 0.780 Kg, Chloro Sulphonic Acid 0.441 Kg, Sodium Hydroxide 0.175 Kg, and E.D.T.A Tech 0.0005 Kg.

Handling of seized valuables: adopt barcoding, biometric key controls, weighing, X ray and GPS tracking to prevent theft.
Guidelines require upgraded custodial controls for seized valuables to prevent theft and substitution by mandating bar coding/QR tagging for inventory, restricted access to strong rooms with biometric key management linked to CCTV, recording and periodic verification of the gross weight of sealed containers, installation of electronic weighing machines and X-ray scanning for stock-taking, GPS tagging of packages and vehicles during transit, and adoption of an e-malkhana-type electronic inventory system alongside issued SOPs.

Corrigendum under Section 154 updates a public notice: regulatory citation corrected and professional qualifications amended.
Corrigendum issued under Section 154 of the Customs Act corrects two textual errors in a prior public notice: it updates the regulatory citation to CBLR, 2018 and expands the listed professional qualifications to include Company Secretary and postgraduate legal qualifications, serving as an administrative correction to the notice's references and qualification enumeration without changing substantive policy.

Registration requirement for authorised carriers to register under amended cargo manifest regulations and submit prescribed documents.
Authorised carriers filing Arrival and Departure manifests must register with the Commissioner of Customs by applying in Form I and submitting the Annexure II checklist of supporting documents, including identity and address proofs, incorporation/partnership documents, power of attorney or board resolution, police clearance for authorised persons, GST registration evidence, steamer agency agreement where applicable, and copy of previous licence.

IGST refund on exports: shipping bill treated as refund claim once EGM and valid GST returns filed, payment via PFMS.
Refund of IGST on exported goods is triggered when the shipping bill is deemed an application after filing a valid export general manifest and a valid return in Form GSTR 3 or GSTR 3B; the Customs system processes the claim and credits IGST electronically to the exporter's bank account registered with Customs, with payments routed through PFMS. Exporters must ensure matching of Table 6A details in GSTR 1 with customs records, validate bank account details in ICES/PFMS, and note that refunds may be withheld on request of the jurisdictional tax authority or if exports violate customs law.

E-way bill discrepancies: minor document errors should attract penalty but not detention in specified cases.
The Commissioner clarifies that where consignments are accompanied by an invoice or other specified document and a valid e-way bill, detention and seizure proceedings should not be initiated for limited inadvertent discrepancies-such as minor name spelling errors with correct GSTIN; PIN code mistakes not affecting e-way bill validity; minor address locality errors; one or two digit errors in document or vehicle numbers; and limited HSN digit inaccuracies where the first two digits and tax rate are correct-and that such consignments should attract the statutory penalty recorded in the prescribed adjudication form, with weekly reporting of non detention cases.

E-way bill requirement for goods stored in transporter godown: declaration ends movement, new e-way needed for onward transfer.
E-way bill obligation applies to goods temporarily stored in a transporter's godown; if the consignee declares that godown as its additional place of business with the transporter's concurrence, arrival at the godown concludes the transportation under the e-way bill and extension is not required. Subsequent movement from that godown to other recipient premises requires a fresh valid e-way bill. Transporters offering warehousing must register and maintain accounts as warehouse keepers, while recipients must maintain required records and may keep books relating to stored goods at their principal place of business.

Interception procedure modified: release wording standardized and detention limited to consignments with GST non-compliance, hard-copy proof allowed.
The circular modifies transit enforcement: replace "three working days" with "three days" and fix FORM GST MOV-05 release wording. Where a conveyance has been physically verified in transit, no further verification in the State is to occur absent fresh information of evasion; hard-copy notices/orders may be used as proof between tax authorities while portal forms remain unavailable. Detention or confiscation is limited to goods or conveyances for which a violation of GST law or rules is established, allowing selective action against non-compliant consignments on a multi-consignment conveyance.

Territorial jurisdiction of appellate authority designated, conferring appellate competence over adjudicating authority orders within notified GST areas.
The State authorised a specified officer to act as Appellate Authority for Jaipur-III under the Rajasthan Goods and Services Tax Act, conferring appellate competence over orders of Adjudicating Authorities within the territorial jurisdictions notified by the State; the designation is made under the Act read with the relevant procedural rule and remains in force until superseded by further order or a new posting.

Territorial jurisdiction of appellate authorities clarified, aligning GST appeal postings with prior VAT appellate offices.
The order authorises specified officers to act as Appellate Authorities to hear appeals against orders or decisions of adjudicating authorities under the GST law for persons within notified territorial jurisdictions, and maps those GST appellate posts to corresponding appellate offices under the prior RVAT regime.

Electronic sealing for export containers: self sealing and factory stuffing exporters may self seal at approved premises per procedures.
Exporters with self sealing permission and those holding factory stuffing permission, including Authorized Economic Operators, are entitled to carry out factory stuffing and apply electronic seals at their approved stuffing premises under the Board's circulars; the notice lists additional exporters granted self sealing permission (July-September 2018) with addresses and notes that certain permissions remain conditional on customs officer supervision.

FPI registration processing time disclosure requires DDPs to report monthly application counts, average processing time, and pendency reasons.
DDPs must report monthly to SEBI the number of FPI applications received, the average time taken to process those applications, the number pending beyond thirty days and reasons for pendency, in a prescribed format by the fifth working day of each month for publication on SEBI's website; requirement is effective immediately.

Drawback election prevents later IGST refund claims when exporters declared higher composite drawback and relinquished IGST entitlement.
Exporters who claimed composite drawback rates and made the required shipping bill declarations (suffix A/C and DBK002/DBK003) thereby relinquished any claim for refund of integrated goods and services tax; accordingly, IGST refunds shall not be permitted where higher drawback was elected, and this instruction operates as a standing order for officers.

Online registration requirement for budgetary support under GST mandates electronic claim filing and processing with portal-issued unique IDs.
Online registration and electronic filing are mandated for units seeking budgetary support under the GST regime in specified states; eligible units must obtain one-time registration on the ACES-GST portal to receive a unique ID used for submission, processing, sanction and payment of claims. Jurisdictional Deputy Commissioners or Assistant Commissioners of Central Tax will process and approve registrations and online claims; manual filing is discontinued and previously manually registered units must re-register online without additional verification based on earlier approval.

Waiver of penalty for late filing of Bills of Entry granted where electronic filing failed due to system outage.
Non-functioning of the e-Sanchit module prevented some importers, exporters and Customs brokers from filing Bills of Entry within prescribed time limits. As a trade facilitation measure, and with the Commissioner of Customs' approval, penalties for late filing of Bills of Entry are waived for those who could not file due to the technical failure during the outage.

Drawback election: claiming higher composite drawback with required declarations relinquishes entitlement to IGST refund for that export.
Claiming composite drawback by using drawback serials suffixed A or C and by making required declarations (including DBK002 and DBK003) on the shipping bill constitutes an affirmative relinquishment of any IGST refund or ITC claim for that export; the shipping bill functions as the drawback claim under the Drawback Rules, rendering exporters who elected higher drawback rates ineligible for subsequent IGST refund for the same export and not subject to reopening.

Export proceeds monitoring requires banks to update EDPMS to avoid recovery action for disbursed drawback and interest.
Monitoring of export proceeds is effected via the RBI-BRC Module for shipping bills with LEO on or after 01.04.2014; quarterly defaulting-IEC lists have been published. Exporters must have their authorised dealer banks update realisation details in the banks' EDPMS so customs can reconcile data; failure to do so will attract alerts and show cause notices for recovery of drawback with interest. Manual BRCs or Negative statements will not be accepted for affected shipments.