Indian Treaty Series

New Delhi, 30 May 1968

In order to establish an exchange of Money Orders between India and Malawi, the Postal Administration of India and the Postal Administration of Malawi,

HAVE agreed upon the following articles :

Article 1

There shall be a regular exchange of money orders between India and Malawi by means of the mail service usually employed for the exchange of correspondence. The money order service from India is temporarily suspended.

Article 2

The Money Order business between the two countries shall be performed exclusively through offices of exchange communicating with each other by means of lists, as is explained more particularly below, the Money Orders made out and forwarded to the payee by the office of exchange of the country in which the Orders are payable.

The offices of exchange shall be, on the side of India, Bombay and on the side of Malawi, Blantyre.

Article 3

The amount of orders exchange in both directions shall be expressed in English Pounds Sterling.

Article 4

Each country shall have power to fix the maximum amount for which it will issue a single money order. The maximum shall not exceed Pounds 40 or the nearest practical equivalent of that sum in the money of the country of issue.

The maximum limit fixed by each country shall be communicated to the other.

Article 5

No money order shall contain a fractional part of a penny.

Article 6

The manner and conditions of issuing money orders in either country shall be governed by the Regulations in force for the time being in the country of issue.

Article 7

The cost of money orders, i.e. the amounts to be paid for them by the remitters in the currency of the country of issue including money order commission, shall be governed by the Regulations in force for the time being in the country of issue.

Each country shall communicate to the other the Regulations relating to the charges for money orders issued, in force for the time being.

Article 8

Applications by remitters for the alteration or corrections of the address and/or name of the payee shall be received under the Regulations of the country of issue, and forwarded to the country of payment for disposal under its Regulations, accompanied by each information as may be necessary for the identification of the particular orders referred to.

Applications by remitters for repayment of orders shall be received and forwarded in like manner, the repayment being made only under the authority of the country of payment, and according to the Regulations of the country of issue.

Article 9

The conversion of money orders drawn by Malawi upon India, into the currency of India for payment shall be governed by the Regulations in force for the time being in India. The Postal Administration of India, when so required, shall communicate to the Postal Administration of Malawi the rate of exchange at which the amounts of money orders have been or are being converted.

Article 10

The manner and conditions of paying orders, including stoppage of payment, renewal or orders, issue of duplicate orders, and other services affecting payment, shall be governed by the Regulations in force for the time being in the country of payment.

Article 11

The amount of money orders not ultimately paid i.e. of orders which become void under the Regulations of the country of payment, shall be credited to the country of each. Each administration shall render to the other a schedule as per annexed specimen FMO-1.

Article 12

The Country of issue which collects the money from remitters shall account to the country of payment for the total amount of the orders issued, together with one half of the one per cent additional on the total by way of commission.

Article 13

The offices of exchange shall communicate to each other, by the first available mail, the particulars of money orders issued, by means of lists in the annexed form FMO-1, which shall contain such particulars of the orders as may be agreed upon from time to time, between the two Administrations.

The particulars shall include the full surname and at least the initial of one personal or Christian name, both of the remitter and payee and the full address of the payee. If, however, a Christian or personnel name cannot be given, an order may, nevertheless, be issued at the remitter’s risk. When the remitter or payee is an official of the state or the representative of a Society or Company it will suffice for the usual title to be furnished.

Article 14

Orders authorised to be repaid to the remitters and also particulars of Money Orders which may become void according to the regulations in force in the country of payment shall be entered on a separate schedule as per FMO-1 for credit of the country of issue or orders.

Article 15

The lists despatched from each office of exchange shall be numbered consecutively, commencing with No.1 for the first list of each calendar year, and these numbers, shall be termed the “List Numbers”.

Article 16

The entries in the lists respecting orders issued shall also bear consecutive numbers, commencing with No.1 at the beginning of each calendar month and these numbers shall be termed the “International Numbers”.

Article 17

On receipt of an inward advice list, it must first be examined by the receiving office of exchange to see that the serial number of the list advised in the next number in the sequence of the series proper to the office of exchange of the country of origin.

Article 18

Should any list not be received in due course, the despatching office shall, on receiving information to that effect, transmit without delay a duplicate thereof.

Article 19

Each list shall be carefully verified by the receiving office of exchange, and corrected when it contains simple errors, such corrections being communicated to the despatching office of exchange.

Article 20

When a list shall contain errors or irregularities which cannot be rectified without previous communication with the despatching office, the receiving office shall request an explanation from the despatching office. This explanation shall be given with as little delay as possible, in the meantime, the payment of order dependent on the irregular entries shall be suspended.

Article 21

The remitter of a money order may obtain an advice of payment of the order by paying in advance, the exclusive profit of the Administration of the country of issue, a charge to be fixed by the country of origin of the money order.

The advice of payment shall be on a form in accordance with or analogous to the annexed specimen Form FMO-11.

The advice of payment shall be prepared by the paying office and shall be transmitted direct to the remitter either by the office of payment or by the exchange offices of country of payment.

The advice of payment of a “Through” money order (see Article 29) shall be sent through the office of exchange of the two countries.

If application for an advice of payment is made at the time of issue of an order, the letters A.P. shall be written against the entry in the list. If application for an advice of payment is made subsequent to the issue of an order, a form of advice of payment, giving full particulars of the order, shall be sent to the exchange office of the country of payment (or in the case of “through orders” to be exchange office of the intermediary country) which shall arrange for its completion and despatch to the remitter.

Article 22

When the Blantyre office of exchange shall have received from Bombay all lists bearing dates in any one month, these lists together with the lists of Malawi bearing dates in the same month shall from the subject of a monthly account which shall be prepared by Malawi on the annexed specimen Form FMO-10.

Article 23

The account mentioned in Article 22 shall be based on the lists as corrected by the receiving office, any entries at the time under suspension, pending explanation, being executed.

Article 24

The account shall also include under the head of “Special items” any necessary adjustments of previous accounts (such as adjustments on account of suspended entries) as well as any other item of account not otherwise provided for; a detailed statement of such special items being annexed to the account and the correspondence or other documents forming the authority for each special item being quoted opposite to it in the statement.

Article 25

A copy of the account mentioned in Article 22 shall be forwarded, in triplicate, to the Director General of Posts & Telegraphs (DDA Section), New Delhi, for acceptance.

If the balance be in favour of the Postal Administration of Malawi, the Director General of Posts and Telegraphs, New Delhi, shall remit this balance by means of a bill of exchange in Sterling, drawn in favour of the Postmaster-General, Post Office Box 537, Blantyre, Malawi.

If the balance be in favour of India, the Postal Administration of Malawi shall effect payment ot the Director General of Posts and Telegraphs, New Delhi through the Malawi-United Kingdom General Account.

Any amount remaining due from one Government ot the other at the expiration of six months following the period covered by the relative account shall thenceforth be subject to interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum. The interest shall be carried to the debit side of the Administration in areas in the following account.

Article 26

Each Postal Administration shall have authority to suspend temporarily the exchange of money orders, in case the course of exchange or any other circumstances give rise to abuses or cause detriment to the revenue.

Article 27

For ordinary correspondence affecting the preparation, transmission, or correction of lists, accounts, etc, the offices of exchange shall be the medium of communication; but in matters involving questions other than those of detail, the office of correspondence shall be the office of the Director General of Posts and Telegraphs, New Delhi, on the one hand, and that of the Postmaster General, Blantyre, Malawi on the other.

Article 28

Each Administration shall have authority to adopt any additional rules (if not repugnant to the foregoing) for the greater security against fraud, or for the better working of the system generally. All such additional rules, however, shall be communicated by the one country to the other.

Article 29

The Postal Administration of India and the Postal Administration of Malawi shall also each be entitled to transmit money orders through the medium of the other Administration to any country with which the latter exchanges money orders, on terms to be settled before hand by common consent between the two Administration.

Article 30

Telegraphic money orders for the sums not exceeding the maximum amount allowed in the case of ordinary money orders shall also be exchanged between Malawi and India.

Article 31

Each of the contracting Administrations shall indicate to the other the offices to which it admits the exchange of telegraphic money orders.

Article 32

The remitter of every telegraphic money order shall be required to pay, in addition to the ordinary commission (see Article 7) the cost of a telegram of advice from one country to the other. The telegram of advice shall be charged for at the deferred rate and shall be subject to all the conditions governing the transmission of telegrams accepted at that rate, unless the remitter prefers to telegraph at the full ordinary rate.

Independently of the charges above mentioned, each of the contracting Administrations reserves to itself the right to levy from the remitter of each telegraphic money order which it issues a supplementary charge, the amount of which shall be fixed and retained by the issuing Administration.

Article 32

(a) Every telegram of advice for an order payable in India shall be transmitted to the office of destination through the Central Telegraph Office at Bombay, and every telegram of advice for an order payable in Malawi shall be transmitted through the office of exchange at Blantyre.

The telegram of advice shall be prepared in accordance with the following specimen :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
LT Mandat 146 Bombay Ali Ahmed Gemin Hamid Mirza To pay your
Palace Hotel passage
(1) Supplementary instructions to be issued only when a telegram is prepaid at the deferred rate. The symbol must be placed at the beginning of the telegram. When a reply is prepaid the indication-RP-followed by the amount prepaid must appear between the letters “LT” and the word “Mandat”.

(2) Serial number of order inserted at the office of exchange in place of the number inserted at the office of issue. The series of numbers used at each despatching office of exchange shall begin at 1 on the first of January each year.

(3) Office of payment.

(4) Name of the remitter

(5) Code word (see Annexed Schedules) expressing the amount of order in Sterling.

(6) Name and address of payee

(7) Private message, if any for the payee.

(b) If the payee is a women, the prefix Mrs or Miss should appear before her name, unless the Christian or personal Name is given. In all cases, the remitter bears the consequence if the address of the telegram of advice, or that of the payee is incorrect or is insufficient to ensure payment to the proper person.

The foregoing particulars must always appear in the telegram of advice in the order given above.

(c) If the office of payment is not a telegraph office, the name of the nearest telegraph office should be written after the name of the office of payment. If the sender is unable to indicate the nearest telegraph office, the telegram of advice may be accepted at his risk provided that the name of the country of destination is added after the name of the office of payment.

(d) If a telegraphic money order is intended to be called for at a post office the words “Poste Restante” must be written instead of the address after the payee’s name. In the absence of these words it must be assumed that the order is to be sent out for delivery or that a notice of its arrival is to be sent to the payee.

(e) An advice of payment may be obtained, as provided for in Article 21. If the remitter desires to communicate by telegraph, his request for an advice of payment, the words “Advice Payment” must appear as the first words or text of the telegram of advice, that is, before the name of the remitter.

In such a case the office of exchange of the country of payment must arrange for an advice of payment to be sent by post to the office of exchange of the country of issue for transmission to the remitter.

(f) The remitter of a telegraphic money order shall be allowed to add to the official telegram of advice any communication not exceeding twelve words which he may wish to send to the payee on payment for the additional words required at the ordinary or deferred rates according to the class of the telegraphic money order. He shall also be allowed to prepay the cost of a telegraphic reply to such a communication.

Article 34

On receipt of the inward telegram of advice in the Central Telegraph Office, Bombay, or at the exchange office at Blantyre as the case may be, it must first be examined to see that the serial numbers of the order advised is the next number in the sequence of the series proper to the office of exchange of the country of origin, and the particulars must then be signalled either under the same number or under a new exchange office number to the proper office of payment.

Article 35

On receipt of the telegram of advice at the office of payment a money order (or notice of the arrival of the order) must be prepared and delivered to the payee. Any private message for the payee must be communicated to him at the same time either in an ordinary telegraph form or on a detachable slip affixed to the telegraph money order or on the notice of the arrival of the order.

Article 36

The Telegraphic Regulations annexed to the International Telecommunication Convention, Geneva 1958 or any regulations which may, in future, be substituted thereof, shall apply to telegrams of advice of other telegrams sent in connection with money orders to appointment of the telegraph charges on such telegrams, and to the reimbursement of such charges.

Article 37

As in the case of ordinary money orders, the issuing Administration shall account to the Paying Administration for the total amount of orders advised, together with one half of one per cent additional on the total by way of commission. To this end the telegraphic money orders shall be entered by the appropriate office of exchange in Advice Lists in the same manner as ordinary money orders, but on separate sheets, with the heading “Advised by Telegraph” and the amounts of such orders shall be included in the total amounts of the lists. The exchange office serial number of each order as well as the serial number given to the order at the office of issue must be shown in the list.

Article 38

When the advice lists each the office of exchange of the country of destination, the telegram of advice which has been received shall be carefully checked against the relative entries in the lists. Any difference between the amounts stated in the lists and the amounts in the telegrams of advice, or any other irregularities shall be reported to the country of issue by paid service telegram, if necessary.

Article 39

In cases of errors or fictitious orders the responsibility for any losses involved, other than the loss of telegraph charges shall be borne by the Administration in whose service the error or fraud was committed, except when the order is issued at remitter’s risk as provided in Article 13. When, however, it is impossible to determine in which service the error or fraud was committed, or in cases of fraud or error in connection with the transmission of telegrams over the communication of intermediate countries or telegraph companies the responsibility for any losses involved rather than the loss of telegraph charges, shall be shared equally between the Postal Administration of India and the Postal Administration of Malawi.

Article 40

In order respects telegraphic money orders shall be subject to the same regulations as ordinary orders.

Article 41

The present Arrangement shall take effect on signature and shall continue to be in force until it shall be modified by mutual consent of the contracting parties, or until one year after the date on which one of the Contracting Parties shall have notified the other in writing of its intention to terminate it.

EXECUTED in duplicate and signed.

at New Delhi at Blantyre
the 30 May 1968 the 4th July 1968