When Your Supplier Claims BIS Certification but Has Lapsed

The most common Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Quality Control Order (QCO) disaster for Indian importers is not deliberate fraud. It is a supplier whose CM/L licence lapsed quietly between the purchase order and the shipment, leaving the consignment uncovered at the port. The supplier issued a pro forma invoice citing a CM/L number valid on the day. The factory shipped against the same number weeks later. The container landed at Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT), and the appraising officer's query at manakonline.in returned a status the importer had never seen: "suspended", "withdrawn", or "expired — renewal pending". Demurrage began accruing that afternoon. The supplier, contacted by email, replied that the licence "is being renewed" and that the importer should "clear the cargo against the test report". The test report does not clear the cargo. The licence does.

Why CM/L licences lapse

A CM/L licence under the ISI Mark Scheme or the Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme (FMCS) is not a one-time grant. Rule 13 of the Bureau of Indian Standards (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018 makes the licence subject to continuing conditions — payment of the annual marking fee, satisfactory surveillance audits, and conformity of marked production to the IS standard. A failure on any condition moves the licence to a status other than "valid" on the day the regional office passes the order.

Three lapse modes dominate the field record. The first is surveillance audit failure. Schedule II of the BIS Conformity Assessment Regulations, 2018 prescribes the periodicity of routine surveillance — annual for low-risk categories, six-monthly for high-risk. Where the officer draws a sample that fails to conform, where the batch-production register is incomplete, or where the sealed-sample register is short of prescribed retention, the regional office initiates suspension under Rule 13.

The second is marking-fee non-payment. Schedule II ties continued validity to timely payment of the annual marking fee, calibrated to the quantum of marked production declared by the licensee. A licensee that misses the payment window — common with foreign manufacturers in their second or third FMCS cycle — sees the licence move to "expired" while the factory continues to mark goods that no longer carry valid certification.

The third is scope withdrawal under Rule 15 of the BIS Conformity Assessment Regulations, 2018. The licence is granted for a defined product description against a named IS standard, often with sub-clauses limiting the licensed grade, dimension band, or finish. Rule 15 permits the Bureau to vary or withdraw the scope where production has migrated beyond the licensed range or where an S.O. notification has narrowed the standard's coverage. The licence number remains active; the product description against the number no longer matches the consignment description on the Bill of Entry. The portal returns a "scope mismatch", which the appraising officer reads as a detention.

How to verify CM/L status on manakonline.in

The BIS portal at manakonline.in is the single source of truth for licence status. Verification belongs with the importer's compliance function on every purchase order, not the supplier and not the freight forwarder.

The "Public Search" tab accepts a CM/L number, a manufacturer name, or an IS number as the entry key. A query returns the manufacturer name, the factory address, the IS standard, the product description, the dates of grant, renewal, and last surveillance audit, and the current status indicator. The indicators carry distinct operational meanings. "Valid" is the only status under which a consignment clears without intervention. "Surveillance pending" indicates an overdue surveillance round; the consignment may clear, but the buyer carries the risk that suspension is announced between the Bill of Entry and the out-of-charge order. "Suspended" and "Withdrawn" both produce a failed customs verification. "Expired" indicates the licence period has lapsed and renewal is pending; the consignment will not clear until renewal is granted.

The screenshot habit is the single highest-yield discipline. The importer captures a date-stamped screenshot on the day of the purchase order, on the day of dispatch, and on the day the consignment is expected to arrive. The screenshot should show the CM/L number, the IS standard, the product description, the factory address, the status indicator, and the URL bar with the timestamp. The portal does not preserve a retrievable query history, and the dated screenshot is the only evidence the importer can produce where the supplier later disputes the status at the time of contracting.

What concurrent running looks like in practice

The lapse problem is sharpened by the concurrent-running regime that applies to several IS standards in transition. IS 13252 and IS 616 remain valid in concurrent running with IS/IEC 62368-1 until 01-11-2028, per S.O. notifications under the Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirements for Compulsory Registration) Order. A licence issued against IS 13252 today will be honoured at the port today; the same licence on a consignment landing on 02-11-2028 will fail customs verification because the underlying standard is no longer notified.

The same pattern applies in iron and steel under IS 2062 grade extensions and in household appliances under safety-standards harmonisation. The importer contracting a three-year supply agreement against a transitioning standard carries an obligation to track the deadline against every shipment. The practical discipline is the contract-period audit: at the start of each calendar quarter, the compliance function audits every active supplier against the current portal status and the transition timetable.

What to do when discovery happens pre-shipment vs post-arrival

Discovery before dispatch is recoverable. The importer notifies the supplier in writing that the CM/L licence shows a status other than "valid" on manakonline.in, attaches the screenshot, and instructs the supplier to resolve the status before the cut date or substitute production from a licensed sister facility. Where the supplier is a foreign factory under the FMCS, the Authorised Indian Representative (AIR) is the addressee of the notice and is responsible under Rule 11 of the BIS Conformity Assessment Regulations, 2018 for the regulatory exchange with BIS. The dispatch is held; the goods do not leave under an invalid licence.

Discovery after arrival is materially worse. The container has landed, the Bill of Entry filed, the mismatch flagged, and the detention memo issued under Section 17 of the Customs Act, 1962 read with Section 17 of the BIS Act, 2016. Demurrage and ground rent accrue from day one. Misuse of the ISI mark without a valid CM/L licence is a statutory offence under Section 17(1)(b) of the BIS Act, 2016, and Sections 29 through 33 of the BIS Act, 2016 carry monetary penalty up to ₹2 lakh for a first offence and criminal liability — including imprisonment up to two years — for repeat offences. See the port-detention playbook for the document-by-document escalation.

Contract clauses that survive a lapsed-licence event

A purchase order or master supply agreement that addresses the lapse risk explicitly produces a different recovery profile than one that does not.

The licence-status warranty: the supplier represents that the CM/L licence cited in the contract is valid on the date of dispatch and undertakes to notify the buyer within 24 hours of any status change communicated by BIS. The warranty runs to the date of out-of-charge. Breach gives rise to a contractual claim for the full cost of detention, demurrage, re-export, or substitute procurement, not merely the contract price.

The indemnity and hold-harmless: the supplier indemnifies the buyer against losses arising from a licence status change between purchase order and out-of-charge, with a defined cap calibrated against the importer's exposure under Sections 29 through 33 of the BIS Act, 2016. The hold-harmless extends to penalty assessments where the importer is named as a co-respondent under Section 17(1)(b).

The automatic termination on lapse: where the CM/L status moves to anything other than "valid" between the purchase order and the bill of lading, the buyer may terminate without penalty and recover all advance payments.

The verification covenant: the supplier consents to the buyer's portal verification at any time and undertakes to produce, on 48 hours' notice, the latest surveillance audit report, marking-fee receipt, and scope endorsement. These clauses are routinely missing from supplier templates; the drafting bargain is not difficult to win where the buyer is the larger commercial counterparty.

Recovery playbook

Where the lapse is identified after arrival, three escalation tracks run in parallel.

The first is the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) relief track. Where the importer can demonstrate that goods were dispatched in good faith against a then-valid licence and that the lapse occurred during the voyage, DPIIT and BIS jointly issue, in narrow circumstances, an ad-hoc clearance order subject to undertakings. The application is filed with the regional BIS office, copied to DPIIT, with the dated screenshots, the bill of lading, and the test reports. The relief is discretionary; the case turns on the screenshots and on the documented verification habit.

The second is the AIR escalation track. Rule 11 of the BIS Conformity Assessment Regulations, 2018 makes the AIR statutorily liable for the foreign factory's compliance, and Section 33 of the BIS Act, 2016 attaches personal exposure where the offence is attributable to the AIR's neglect or connivance. A notice to the AIR runs in parallel to the supplier dispute and produces a faster response than a notice to the foreign factory alone.

The third is the conditional-release track. Where the licence is "expired — renewal pending" rather than "suspended" or "withdrawn", the regional BIS office can issue a no-objection that permits release against a bank guarantee. The guarantee is encashed if renewal is not granted within a stipulated window — typically 60 to 90 days — and returned on grant. This is the only outcome in which the goods enter Indian commerce without re-export or abandonment, and it is available only on the narrow fact pattern of a pending renewal rather than a surveillance failure.

A Word of Counsel

Treat the CM/L number on the supplier's pro forma invoice as a claim to be verified, not a fact to be relied on. The portal query takes ninety seconds; the dated screenshot takes another thirty. The buyer who runs the query on the purchase order date, the dispatch date, and the arrival date carries three pieces of documentary evidence that anchor every escalation pathway from DPIIT relief to contractual indemnity. The buyer who relies on the supplier's email confirmation discovers at the detention memo that the burden of proving good-faith reliance falls on the importer.

What to Do Next

Build verification into the procurement workflow as a hard gate, not a discretionary step. The purchase order does not issue until the compliance function has filed the dated screenshot against the CM/L number, the IS standard, the product description, and the factory address. The bill of lading does not release for sea freight until a second screenshot is filed against the dispatch date. Where consignment volume makes manual capture impractical, subscribe to a portal-monitoring service that flags status changes against a watched supplier list within 24 hours. Where a lapse is identified, the 72 hours between identification and dispatch decision is the window in which re-tasking, holding, or substitute procurement remains commercially viable.

Speak to an Expert. Access India's supplier-verification and pre-shipment compliance practice covers portal monitoring across active supplier lists, contract drafting against the licence-status warranty, and post-detention escalation through DPIIT and the regional BIS offices. Begin at /contact.