Defective ITR2 return - 37BA - gross receipts shown in 26AS higher than ITR

1. Have you reported income tax refund in separate column in IFOS.
2. Have you ticked the appropriate heads of income in TDS columns
3. Have you filled ITR 2?

1. Yes 
2. Yes, the tax refund and savings interest is marked as income from other sources and STCG is marked as income from capital gains
3. Yes

I forgot to mention that I'm an NRI. I have some interest income from my NRE accounts which shouldn't be taxed and hence are not mentioned in my ITR nor they appear in my 26AS. The interest income shown above is from the NRO accounts which comes under taxation and hence I mentioned it in the ITR. I'm also attaching the taxpayer information summary available from the AIS. 

I wonder if my being NRI is causing an issue here.

Unless the ITR is personally verified, the defect cannot be ascetained. Contact any local CA for its verification.

I verified the return from the local CA and he also couldn't find an issue. He says there might be some issue with the internal verification systems of the income tax portal. I get the defective return notice as soon as I submit the revised returns so it seems like an automated screening that my return is failing. (At this point I have filed the revised returns multiple times)

 I tried creating a grievance in the income tax portal but they replied the following which is not very useful:

"Dear Taxpayer, we are in process of analyzing your response to communication sent with regard to rectifying the defect in your Return of income filed for AY. If you have filed revised return subsequently, the same will be taken up for processing and it will be done in batches based on various automated validations and risk parameter analysis. Also certain claims made by you in the return will be validated on system driven environment. CPC will send intimation to your registered email id once the processing gets completed."

Any advice on what should be done now? Is rejecting the defective notice the only way to go ahead?

Without looking at the return filed, when the system declares it as defective, nothing can be said. It would be advisable to file application, offline, with your juristictional ITO.

I tried increasing the income from interest and short term capital gains by a bit, but it is still marked as defective. I didn't increase the income tax refund part. I don't know if that will help. I also checked the tax mismatch part, and it doesn't show any mismatch. 

I had a similar return the previous year as well and I was able to submit the return properly, I don't know what has changed this year for it to be marked defective.