Operation of Joint B Type Accounts under National Savings Schemes

SB Order No. 12/2021

File No. FS·10/17/2020-FS
Government of India
Ministry of Communications
Department of Posts
(F.S. Division)

Dak Bhawan, New Delhi – 110001
Dated: 22.06.2021

To

All Head of Circles / Regions

Subject: Clarification on Operation of Joint B Type Accounts under National Savings Schemes – Regarding.

Rule 3(1)(i) of Government Savings Promotion General Rules, 2018 dated 05.10.20 18 clearly defines that operation of account means opening of, deposit in, transfer of or withdrawal from an account.

2. Karnataka Circle vide Lr. N o. SB/04/MIS/BG(2)/17-18 dated 27.01.2021 raised that other operation viz. Closure of Account and applying for duplicate passbook are not defined in rules and requested to do the needful.

3. Hence, the matter was taken up with Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and it was clarified by  MoF vide  its  OM  No. 1/6/2021-NS dated 14.06.2021 that DOP may infer that all kinds of operations are allowed by any of the depositors or the surviving depositor severally in case of Joint B Type account and DOP may draft its own guidelines to  avoid any possible misuse of the account.

4. Accordingly, the following guidelines in respect of operation of  Joint  B Type Accounts are issued.

(i). All the operations of account including closure, issue of duplicate passbook and transfer of account etc shall be allowed to be carried out by either of the joint depositors or survivor in case of Joint B Type account in respect of all the schemes except  Senior  Citizens  Savings  Scheme under  National  Savings Schemes.

(ii). In the Application for transfer of account/certificates in case of Non-CBS Post Offices and transfer to Branch Post Offices, the signatures of all the depositors in a Joint Account either “A” type or “B” type, shall be obtained, as there is a need for specimen signatures of all the depositors.

(iii). In  case of  SCSS   Account,  since the whole amount of  deposit is attributable to the first account holder only as per Rule 3(6) of Senior  Citizens’ Savings Scheme  2019,  only withdrawal of quarterly interest shall be allowed to be carried out by either of the joint depositors or survivor in case of Joint B Type account. In respect of remaining operations of Joint B Type  SCSS Account, either the first account holder may do all the operations or the signature of the first account holder is mandatory in all application forms of various operations of account.

(iv). In case of request for issue of ATM Card /activation of EB/MB for Joint B Type Savings Account, separate application form (SB-ATM1) shall be obtained from each of the Joint Account Holders.

5. This may be circulated to all the Post Offices for information and necessary actions.

6. This is issued with the approval of the Competent Authority.

(T C VIJAYAN)
Asst. Director (SB-I)