The short version

We are an all-sales-final store: delivered orders are not refundable. Refunds arise in exactly three situations — an order cancelled before dispatch, a payment debited for an order that did not complete, and the damaged-or-wrong-item exception described in our Returns policy. In each of those cases the refund is full, in rupees, to the original payment method, with no deductions and no store-credit substitution unless you ask for it.

Cancellation refunds

Cancel before dispatch and the entire amount you paid — item price plus any shipping charge — is refunded. We initiate the refund the same working day the cancellation is confirmed. Razorpay then returns the money along the rail it came from: UPI refunds typically land within one to three working days, card refunds within five to seven depending on the issuing bank, netbanking in between. The refund reference number is added to your order page the moment we initiate it, so you can quote it to your bank if needed.

Failed and duplicate payments

If money left your account but the order shows unpaid, the payment failed after debit — an occasional reality of UPI and 3-D Secure flows. These amounts are auto-reversed by the payment network, usually within 48 hours and at most within seven working days; we can see the failed attempt on our Razorpay dashboard and will confirm its status if you send the order number. If a duplicate payment succeeds twice for one order, tell us and the surplus is refunded in full immediately — you do not need to wait for the network.

Damage-exception refunds

Where a damaged or incorrect delivery cannot be resolved with a replacement or an approved alternative, we refund in full, including the shipping you paid. The 48-hour reporting window and unboxing evidence described in the Returns policy apply. Once agreed, the refund follows the same timelines as cancellation refunds above.

What is never refunded

Change of mind after dispatch; dislike of a colour that renders differently on your screen (ask for daylight video before ordering — we provide it freely); fit issues on garments whose measurements we published or supplied on request; craft variation inherent to handwork; and parcels refused at the door without a damage basis. Shipping charges on an RTO caused by an unreachable phone or wrong address are also not refundable, and reshipment in that case is chargeable.

We know a no-refund policy asks for trust. We try to earn it before payment — with real photographs, tape measurements, daylight video and plain answers — and to honour it after, by carving out the damage exception generously and processing the refunds we do owe fast and in full.

How to reach us about a refund

WhatsApp +91 86961 55551 or email hello@nitarashankar.com with your order number. Refund status also appears on your order page as soon as it changes. If a refund we initiated has not reached you inside its window, send us the date shown on the order page and we will pull the Razorpay reference and chase it with the bank from our side.

Timelines at a glance

Refund initiated by us: same working day as the qualifying event (cancellation confirmed, damage claim agreed, duplicate identified). UPI: one to three working days to land. Debit and credit cards: five to seven working days, occasionally up to ten with slower issuing banks — the delay after initiation sits with the bank, not with us, but we chase it with the Razorpay reference on request. Netbanking: three to five working days. The moment of initiation, the amount and the reference all appear on your order page, timestamped.

Refunds always return to the instrument that paid. We cannot redirect a card refund to a different account or convert it to cash or transfer, both for your protection and under payment-network rules. If the paying instrument has since closed, the network routes the amount back to the bank, which contacts you — bring us the reference and we will supply whatever paperwork the bank asks for.

A worked example

You order a saree at ₹7,599 with ₹205 Economy shipping on Monday morning, then cancel at noon the same day, before dispatch. We confirm the cancellation and initiate ₹7,804 back to your UPI within hours; the order page shows the reference; the amount typically reaches you by Wednesday. Contrast: the same order delivered on Friday cannot be refunded for fit or colour — but had it arrived with a torn pallu, your Saturday unboxing video would have produced a replacement dispatch or a full ₹7,804 refund, at your election, with the return of the damaged piece arranged and paid by us.

Where refunds and the law meet

This policy operates alongside, never against, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and payment-network rules. Chargeback rights through your bank remain yours; we ask only that you contact us first — nearly every issue resolves faster in a WhatsApp thread than in a dispute window, and we keep the evidence (packing photographs, weights, courier scans) that makes resolution factual rather than adversarial.

Definitions, for precision

'Dispatch' means the courier's first pickup scan against your order's tracking number — until that scan exists, cancellation and full refund are your right. 'Delivery' means the courier's proof-of-delivery scan at your address. 'Original payment method' means the exact instrument Razorpay charged: the same UPI handle, the same card, the same bank account. 'Working day' excludes Sundays and Indian national holidays; Jaipur's local festival closures are announced on the site banner when they affect processing. 'Initiated' means we have instructed Razorpay and hold a reference number — visible on your order page — after which the landing time belongs to the banking rails described above. These definitions exist so that every timeline on this page has one unarguable meaning.

If a refund seems stuck

First, check the order page: the initiation timestamp and Razorpay reference are the facts everything else hangs on. Second, check the paying instrument's statement for a credit under a slightly different descriptor — banks render refund entries inconsistently, and UPI credits sometimes appear under the bank's own name rather than ours. Third, if the window above has genuinely lapsed, send us the order number and the words 'refund trace'; we pull the Razorpay reference, open a trace with the gateway the same day, and share their written status with you as we receive it. Traces resolve within two to five working days and end either in your credit posting or in documentation you can hand your bank. Throughout, the amount is never in limbo in any sense that risks it — it is in the banking system with a reference number attached, and the trace is about speed, not existence.