The corporate affairs ministry (MCA) is taking steps to book companies evading the statutory annual filings. The companies dodging both form 20B and 23AC/23ACA since 2006 i.e. 2006-2007, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 (i.e. failing required filings) will not be allowed to file any other e-form with ministry unless and until all such pending documents are filed. The status of such companies would be changed to “Dormant “. Once a company is declared dormant it would be kept in a separate bin and would not be allowed to do any filing or transaction till the time it follows necessary procedures for normalising.

Ministry joint secretary A K Srivastava said at an event on Monday, “In India there are 8.5 lakh registered companies and 1.75 lakh companies have been evading the process of doing statutory annual filings. Those  companies having the status as “Dormant” will have to file an application for normalising in eform-61 and once e-form 61 is approved by respective Registrar of Company, the company will be given a stipulated period of 21 days for filing all the due balance sheets and annual returns from the date of approval of form61. If all the due documents are not filed within this period, the company’s status will again be reverted to “Dormant” and will have to follow the process of filing form 61 once again.”

In order to cut timelines and to bring transparency in service delivery, the ministry of corporate affairs has also simplified certain procedures and rules. MCA has removed physical submission of DIN (director identification number) application and made filing online compulsory.

The earlier system took 2 to 5 days for filing applications, examination and allotment of DIN. Now, in the revised process the DIN number can be obtained online within 24 hrs if all the required documents are fully verified by the practicing chartered accountant or company secretaries or cost accountants. Earlier, there was only physical submission of DIN application, the process was cumbersome and time consuming.

The ministry of corporate affairs is going to be strict to the those applicants and professionals certifying the DIN application in case of false information / certification. As per provisions of section 628 of the Act the false case will be taken in addition to action for professional misconduct and revocation of DIN allotted on false information. The required fee payable for submission of DIN can be made only through online and no challan payment will be allowed.

The minstry is also focusing on prioritising the processing of incorporation forms. In the revised system all Registrar of Companies have to first approve above critical services before attending any other forms. Ministry would also ensure that all other critical e-forms are also processed within the service delivery parameters as given in the citizen charter.

In the interest of stakeholders, with a view to improving service delivery time, Ministry has decided to accept payments of value upto Rs.50,000 for MCA 21 services ,only in electronic mode. The effort is to make the process easy and to remove issues like security and delay in payments.

For the payments of value above Rs. 50,000, stakeholders would have the option to either make the payment in electronic mode, or paper challan.