Legal Alert: Hallmarking rules on gold jewellery postponed again, now deferred till June 15, know what is the reason

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the government has given great relief to the gold jewelers. The central government has again deferred the rules of gold hallmarking. Jewelers of the country had asked the government for more time to implement the rules, which the government has agreed to, the jewelers say that they want to make more preparations to implement these rules right now.

Considering the demand of jewelers, the government has postponed the gold hallmarking rules till June 15, which were to come into force from June 1, 2021 across the country. Not only this, the government has also constituted a committee, which will be chaired by Pramod Tiwari, Director General of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

This committee will solve the problems faced in implementing the hallmarking rules and will ensure that the rules are implemented across the country from June 15 without any difficulty. This decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal.

Let us tell you that in November 2019, the central government announced gold hallmarking rules for gold jewellery and artifacts, these rules were to be implemented in the whole country from January 2021. But because of the Corona epidemic, jewelers sought deferment from the government and the deadline went on increasing. As of June 1, the deadline for gold hallmarking had been increased 4 times, now once again it has been extended till June 15, that is, the deadline for implementing it has been increased by a total of 5 times.

It is not that gold hallmarking jewelry is not sold in the country yet, but there is no compulsion on them yet, instead many big jewelers are selling gold hallmarking jewellery itself. Once the rules are in place, all jewelers will have to sell jewellery with hallmarking. Gold hallmarking is a certificate of purity of gold.

If the deadline is not increased again after June 15, all jewelers will be allowed to sell only 14, 18 and 22 carat gold. BIS has been running gold hallmarking scheme since April 2000, as of today, about 40% gold jewellery is hallmarking. According to the World Gold Council, there are about 4 lakh jewelers in India. Out of that, 35,879 are BIS certified.

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Dr. Deepak Miglani, Email id.:- legalbuddy@gmail.com

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