All the operations of account including closure, issue of duplicate passbook and transfer of account etc shall be allowed except for Senior Citizens’ Saving Scheme.
As an investor in post office savings schemes, you may be holding them as a single account or as a joint account. The government has come out with clarifications for investors holding joint accounts in post office savings schemes.
Presently, the Government Savings Promotion General Rules, 2018 has a clearly defined mechanism for account opening, deposit, transfer or withdrawal of funds from an account. However, queries were raised regarding the closure of the Account and applying for duplicate passbook by the investors of post office savings schemes especially because there could be a different mode of holding.
The clarification from the government is important as in addition to the single holding of account, one is allowed to maintain Joint A and Joint B Type Accounts in the PO schemes. The clarification is about the Operation of Joint B Type Accounts under the National Savings Schemes such as NSC, SCSS and others.
The Joint A Type Account may be opened jointly in the names of up to three adults payable to all the holders jointly or to the survivor or survivors while a Joint B-Type Account may be opened jointly in the name of up to three adults payable to any of the account holders or to the survivor or survivors.
The Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance has clarified that all kinds of operations are allowed by any of the depositors or the surviving depositor severally in case of Joint B Type account.
However, in the Application for transfer of account or 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, has to be obtained, as there is a need for specimen signatures of all the depositors.
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Therefore, 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 for Senior Citizens’ Saving Scheme (SCSS) under National Savings Schemes.
In the case of SCSS, an individual may open an account in an individual capacity, or jointly with a spouse. The whole amount of deposit in a joint account shall be attributable to the first account holder only. Both the spouses can open a single account and joint accounts with each other with the maximum deposit of up to Rs 15 lakh in each account provided both are individually eligible to open the account.
In the case of the SCSS Account, since the whole amount of deposit, is attributable to the first account holder, only withdrawal of quarterly interest is to be allowed to be carried out by either of the joint depositors or survivor in the 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 the account.
