ICEGATE
Replying to a Customs Query on a Bill of Entry: The e-Sanchit and Amendment Loop
Why uploading a document to e-Sanchit is not enough to answer a query, the S_DOCS amendment that actually tags it to your BE, and the ten-minute wait nobody tells you about.
By Aaryan Kakani · · 12 min read
Why does Customs raise a query on a Bill of Entry?
Indian imports run on self-assessment. Under Section 17 of the Customs Act, 1962, the importer assesses the duty payable on the goods and the proper officer may verify that self-assessment, examining or testing the goods where needed. Selection for verification is made primarily on the basis of risk evaluation through appropriate selection criteria, so most declarations pass straight through and a minority are pulled aside.
When a declaration is pulled aside, Section 17(3) lets the officer require the importer to produce any document or information relevant to the self-assessment. In ICES, that requirement surfaces to the importer as a query against the Bill of Entry. Section 17(4) then lets the officer re-assess the duty if the self-assessment is found to be incorrect, and under Section 17(5), where the re-assessment is contrary to the self-assessment and the importer does not accept it in writing, the officer must pass a speaking order within fifteen days.
| Provision | What it does | What the importer sees |
|---|---|---|
| Section 17(1). (2) | Importer self-assesses duty; the proper officer may verify, and may examine or test the goods | BE filed and either facilitated or marked for assessment |
| Section 17(3) | Officer may require documents or information relevant to the self-assessment | A query raised against the BE; assessment stalls |
| Section 17(4) | Officer may re-assess the duty where the self-assessment is found incorrect | Revised duty on the BE, often after the query is answered |
| Section 17(5) | Speaking order required within fifteen days where re-assessment is contrary to the self-assessment and is not accepted in writing | A written, appealable order rather than a silent revision |
The practical shape of a query is simple: the officer wants to see something (a licence, a certificate of origin, a technical write-up, a manufacturer's invoice, a PGA no-objection) before the assessment moves. Until the query is answered, the Bill of Entry sits in a queried state and nothing downstream happens: no duty challan, no out-of-charge, no delivery.
Why does uploading a document to e-Sanchit not answer the query?
Because an e-Sanchit upload puts a document into the document repository; it does not attach that document to your Bill of Entry. The attachment is a separate act. ICES Advisory No. 35/2020 dated 9 October 2020 states the point flatly: documents uploaded to e-Sanchit after a Bill of Entry has already been submitted are not tagged by an amendment and therefore never reach the assessing officer.
The correct order of operations
- :
Skip step 2 and the consequence has three parts, all of them invisible until someone picks up the phone:
- The importer sees an IRN. e-Sanchit returns an IRN and a DRN and emails a confirmation. Every visible signal says the document is filed.
- The officer sees nothing. The BE's Supporting Documents table is unchanged, so the assessing officer's screen shows exactly the documents that were on the original declaration.
- The query sits open. Neither side is waiting on the other in its own view, so nothing escalates. The container accrues charges while both parties believe they are blocked by the other.
How do you tag a new document to an already-filed Bill of Entry?
By filing a Bill of Entry amendment against the Supporting Documents table. ICES Advisory No. 35/2020 sets out the mechanism: the amendment uses message type CACHI01_A with amend code S_DOCS taken from the Amendment Master table, and it can be filed either through the Service Centre or online through ICEGATE. The underlying record layout is the Bill of Entry Message Format v2.7 dated 14 September 2020, which is where the Supporting Documents table and its fields are specified.
| Step | What you do | Where you do it | What you get back | Officer approval needed? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Upload the document and generate the IRN | e-SANCHIT on the ICEGATE Filing Services portal | IRN (per document) and DRN (per batch), plus a confirmation email | No |
| 2 | File a BE amendment against the Supporting Documents table using CACHI01_A with amend code S_DOCS | ICEGATE online filing, or the Customs Service Centre | Amendment accepted against the BE; the IRN now sits in the BE's Supporting Documents table | No. Addition is auto-approved |
| 3 | Confirm the addition; if you instead need to remove a document, expect a wait | ICES. BE enquiry / amendment status | Addition reflected immediately; deletion queued to an officer | Only for deletion |
| 4 | Submit the reply to the query itself | ICEGATE query reply against the BE | Query moves back to the assessing officer with the document visible | Officer now acts on the reply |
The fact that governs the whole loop is the asymmetry in step 3. Per Advisory 35/2020, adding supporting documents does not require the officer's approval and is auto-approved; only deleting a document requires officer approval. Additions flow instantly and cost you nothing but the filing. Deletions block on a human being who has no particular reason to prioritise your housekeeping.
What are the exact e-Sanchit upload rules and limits?
The upload path itself is short, and almost every failure happens in the scanning and signing that precede it rather than on the portal.
The upload path
- 1 Log in at foservices.icegate.gov.in Use the ICEGATE ID that will own the upload. A user can only see their own uploads, so the account you log in with is the account that will have to find the document again later.
- 2 Open e-SANCHIT under Filing Services Then click Upload Documents and pick the files from your machine.
- 3 Select the Document type from the dropdown This is the Single Window document code, not a free-text description. Getting it wrong is the most common reason a correctly scanned document still fails to satisfy the officer.
- 4 For PGA documents, add the beneficiary details Beneficiary type, beneficiary code, and the beneficiary ICEGATE ID and name. This is what routes a licence or certificate to the right Participating Government Agency rather than leaving it sitting against your IEC.
- 5 Submit, accept the disclaimer, read off the IRN and DRN Click Submit, accept the disclaimer popup, and record both numbers from the screen. Only the IRN goes into the Bill of Entry.
| Rule | What it means | Where it bites |
|---|---|---|
| IRN is per document | Each PDF you upload gets its own Image Reference Number | The IRN is the only number that goes into the BE |
| DRN is per batch | One Document Reference Number covers the whole upload transaction | Useful for searching later; never entered on the BE |
| Files per DRN | Up to 5 IRNs can share one DRN on the IEC route; the PGA route allows 10 files per DRN | Large query replies must be split across several DRNs |
| Format | PDF only; PDF/A (ISO 19005-2) recommended | JPG, PNG and Word files are rejected outright |
| Scan quality | At least 200 dpi, black and white | Below this, legibility failures and rejected pages |
| Filenames | Must be unique | Duplicate names are caught at upload, not at assessment |
| Signature | The PDF must be signed with the logged-in user's own DSC; a user can only see their own uploads | A file signed by a colleague's DSC will not go through on your login |
How long must you wait after generating an IRN before filing?
Ten minutes. The ICEGATE e-Sanchit advisory instructs users to wait 10 minutes after IRN generation before filing the Bill of Entry or Shipping Bill that references it. The confirmation email carrying the IRN arrives from sender dmadmin within 5 minutes. So the email is not the green light; the ten-minute clock is.
The reason is the downstream mapping. The IRN populates field 14 of the SUPPORTINGDOCS table in the Bill of Entry message format, and a structured flat file is emitted for RES ingestion. File inside the window and you are asking ICES to resolve an IRN that has not finished propagating.
Worked example: a query on a 45-day-old consignment
A query lands at 09:00 asking for the country of origin certificate and the manufacturer's technical write-up. The COO was uploaded 45 days ago against the original BE; the write-up has never been uploaded. Twelve pages in total across the two documents.
- 09:00. Query read. The COO is older than 30 days, so it has been archived in Documentum. Trigger Retrieve from Archival immediately, because that is the long pole.
- 09:00 + 60 min = 10:00. Retrieval from archival completes. The restored file then stays online for 7 days, i.e. Until the same hour on day 8.
- 09:05 → 09:40. In parallel, scan and sign the technical write-up: 200 dpi black and white, unique filename, signed with the DSC of the ICEGATE ID that will upload it.
- 09:45. Upload the write-up. IRN generated. Confirmation email from dmadmin expected by 09:50 (09:45 + 5 min).
- 09:45 + 10 min = 09:55. Earliest moment the amendment may be filed against that IRN.
- 10:00. Both documents available. File one CACHI01_A amendment with amend code S_DOCS carrying both IRNs into the Supporting Documents table. Auto-approved, so no officer wait.
- 10:05. Submit the query reply. Total elapsed: 65 minutes , of which 60 were the archival retrieval that ran in the background.
Batching check: 2 documents on the IEC route, cap of 5 IRNs per DRN → 2 ÷ 5 < 1, so a single DRN covers both. Had the query needed 23 documents, the arithmetic would be 23 ÷ 5 = 4 full DRNs of 5 files plus a remainder of 23 − 20 = 3 files, i.e. 5 DRNs and 23 IRNs, all 23 of which still go into the one S_DOCS amendment.
| Timing / field rule | Value | Why it matters on a query reply |
|---|---|---|
| Wait after IRN generation | 10 minutes | Filing earlier risks the IRN not resolving on the BE or SB |
| IRN confirmation email | Within 5 minutes, from sender dmadmin | Absence of the email after 5 minutes is your first signal something failed |
| IRN mapping on the BE | Field 14 of the SUPPORTINGDOCS table | This is the field the S_DOCS amendment writes to |
| Archival threshold | Documents older than 30 days move to Documentum | Old consignments cannot be re-tagged instantly |
| Retrieve from Archival | Takes 60 minutes; restored file stays online 7 days | Start it first, before you scan anything else |
| PGA search date range | Capped at a 7-day gap between From and To dates | Hunting an old PGA upload needs several narrow searches |
| Invoice / item serial number | Set to '0' when the document applies to all items | A COO covering the whole consignment uses 0, not 1 |
| Document issuing party code | Optional and presently not validated | Do not stall a reply hunting for it |
| Expiry date | May be left blank | Documents without an expiry need nothing invented |
What do the e-Sanchit error messages actually mean?
e-Sanchit's error strings are terse and are usually blamed on the portal when they are in fact describing a defect in the file. Here is what each one is really telling you.
| Message | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The page entered to be signed is not found, file name: <Filename>. | The page number nominated for the digital signature does not exist in the PDF. Usually because pages were dropped when the document was re-scanned or split | Open the PDF, count the pages, and nominate a page that exists; re-scan if pages are genuinely missing |
| Maximum size per file is <MaxFileSize> MB. | The PDF exceeds the live per-file cap, almost always because it was scanned in colour or at high dpi | Re-scan at 200 dpi black and white, or split the document into multiple PDFs and upload each separately |
| Please upload PDF files only, <Filename> is not a valid PDF file. | The file is not a PDF, or is a PDF whose structure is damaged. A renamed image, or a truncated download | Regenerate the PDF from the source; prefer PDF/A (ISO 19005-2) |
| Max number of files allowed per DRN has been exceed. | More files in the batch than the route permits. 5 IRNs per DRN on the IEC route, 10 files per DRN on the PGA route | Split the batch across multiple DRNs; all the resulting IRNs can still go into one S_DOCS amendment |
| Found a duplicate file, name: <Filename>. | Filenames must be unique and this one has been seen before. Typically scan.pdf or doc1.pdf reused across consignments | Rename to something unique and traceable, e.g. BE number plus document type plus date |
A separate family of failures comes from the scan itself. Signing and legibility both break on physical defects in the paper that survive into the image:
- Stapler and punch marks. Unbind stapled documents before scanning rather than feeding them bound.
- Folds, including roller-feed creases. Flatten pages first; creases introduced by the feeder itself are as damaging as ones the document arrived with.
- Skew. Pages fed at an angle produce text the officer has to fight to read.
- Dark patches. Shadow bands and toner smears obscure exactly the fields being queried.
- Elongated or compressed letters. A sign the feed speed or scaling is wrong; re-scan rather than accept it.
How do you search for a document you already uploaded?
Through the Search Document function on the e-SANCHIT page. It filters on DRN, IRN, Document Type, and a From/To date range, and returns "No Item Found" when nothing matches. Remember the two constraints that make searching harder than it looks: a user can only see their own uploads, and PGA search date ranges are capped at a 7-day gap, so a hunt across a month is four or five separate searches.
Searching by Document Type means searching by code. The codes live in the Single Window Document Code Map Directory published on ICEGATE, which maps each code to the issuing agency.
| Document | Code | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| CITES Certificate | 6261WC | WCCB (Wildlife Crime Control Bureau) |
| EPRA | 651001 | CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) |
| Import Licence for drugs | 9111DC | CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation) |
Beneath the agency-specific codes sits the mandatory set that every import carries. Under DGFT Notification No. 08/2015-2020 dated 4 June 2015, the mandatory documents for import are the Bill of Lading or Airway Bill, the Commercial Invoice, the Packing List, and the Bill of Entry. An Invoice-cum-Packing List is permitted in place of separate invoice and packing list documents, per CBEC Circular No. 01/15-Customs dated 12/01/2015.
| Mandatory import document | Authority | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Bill of Lading / Airway Bill | DGFT Notification No. 08/2015-2020, 4 June 2015 | Sea or air as applicable to the consignment |
| Commercial Invoice | DGFT Notification No. 08/2015-2020, 4 June 2015 | May be combined with the packing list |
| Packing List | DGFT Notification No. 08/2015-2020, 4 June 2015 | May be combined with the invoice |
| Bill of Entry | DGFT Notification No. 08/2015-2020, 4 June 2015 | The declaration the query is raised against |
| Invoice-cum-Packing List | CBEC Circular No. 01/15-Customs, 12/01/2015 | Permitted as a single combined document |
Query reply checklist
In order, every time
- Read the query and identify exactly which document answers it. Not the nearest document you already have.
- If any document the query touches is older than 30 days, trigger Retrieve from Archival now and allow 60 minutes; the restored file stays online for 7 days.
- Scan to PDF at 200 dpi or better, black and white, with no staples, punch marks, folds, skew or dark patches. Unbind stapled documents before scanning.
- Give the file a unique filename that ties it to the BE and the document type.
- Sign the PDF with the DSC of the account that will upload it. A user can only see their own uploads.
- Upload to e-Sanchit, select the correct Single Window document type, add beneficiary details if it is a PGA document, and record both the IRN and the DRN.
- Wait 10 minutes after IRN generation. The dmadmin confirmation email arriving within 5 minutes is not the go signal.
- File the BE amendment (message type CACHI01_A, amend code S_DOCS, against the Supporting Documents table) online through ICEGATE or at the Service Centre.
- Confirm the addition went through; additions of supporting documents are auto-approved and need no officer sign-off.
- Only now submit the reply to the query.
- Never plan to delete an IRN. There is no delete in e-Sanchit, and deleting an already-tagged document needs officer approval. Plan instead to simply not reference it.
Related reading on the site: the ICEGATE registration guide covers getting the ICEGATE ID and DSC that every upload depends on, and FEMA repatriation for e-commerce exports covers the export-side realisation rules.
Frequently asked questions
Is uploading a document to e-Sanchit enough to answer a Bill of Entry query?
No. Per ICES Advisory No. 35/2020 dated 9 October 2020, documents uploaded to e-Sanchit after the Bill of Entry has already been submitted are not tagged by an amendment and therefore never reach the assessing officer. The upload generates an IRN, which makes the importer believe the document is on record, but the officer sees nothing and the query stays open. You must file a Bill of Entry amendment against the Supporting Documents table to tag the new IRN, and only then reply to the query.
What is amend code S_DOCS and when do I use it?
S_DOCS is the amend code from the ICES Amendment Master that points at the Supporting Documents table of a Bill of Entry. Per ICES Advisory No. 35/2020, you file the amendment using message type CACHI01_A with amend code S_DOCS to attach a newly uploaded e-Sanchit IRN to a Bill of Entry that has already been filed. The amendment can be filed at the Service Centre or online through ICEGATE.
Does adding a supporting document to a Bill of Entry need officer approval?
No. ICES Advisory No. 35/2020 states that the addition of supporting documents does not require the officer's approval and is auto-approved. Only the deletion of a document requires officer approval. This asymmetry governs the whole query-reply loop: adding the right document flows through instantly, while removing a wrong one blocks on an officer, so the safe strategy is always to add rather than to plan on deleting.
How long should I wait after generating an IRN before filing?
The ICEGATE e-Sanchit advisory instructs users to wait 10 minutes after IRN generation before filing the Bill of Entry or Shipping Bill. The confirmation email carrying the IRN arrives from sender 'dmadmin' within 5 minutes. Filing inside that 10-minute window risks the IRN not being resolvable when the declaration is processed.
Can I delete a document I uploaded to e-Sanchit by mistake?
No. Once an IRN and DRN have been generated the document cannot be deleted from e-Sanchit. The only remedy is never to reference that IRN in any declaration or amendment. Upload a corrected document, generate a fresh IRN, and tag that one instead. Note also that deleting a document already tagged to a Bill of Entry requires officer approval, unlike adding one.
Sources & citations
- ICES Advisory No. 35/2020, 9 October 2020. [icegate.gov.in/guidelines/advisory-be-query-reply](https://www.icegate.gov.in/guidelines/advisory-be-query-reply)
- ICEGATE e-Sanchit advisory. [icegate.gov.in/guidelines/esanchit-advisory](https://www.icegate.gov.in/guidelines/esanchit-advisory)
- e-Sanchit portal. [icegate.gov.in/esanchit](https://www.icegate.gov.in/esanchit)
- Single Window Document Code Map Directory. [Single_Window_Document_Code_Map_Directory.pdf](https://www.icegate.gov.in/sites/default/files/2022-02/Single_Window_Document_Code_Map_Directory.pdf)
- Customs Act, 1962 (consolidated text, 30 March 2022). [taxinformation.cbic.gov.in. Customs Act 1962](https://taxinformation.cbic.gov.in/content/html/tax_repository/customs/acts/1962_custom_act/documents/Customs_Act__1962_30-March-2022.html)
Update history
- First published.