Recently, names of more than 2 lakh companies have been struck off from the Registrar of Companies. These companies are believed to be shell companies. These companies have either not filled their annual accounts or have been inoperative for past 2 years or more.
As per Section 164 of the Companies Act, 2013, a director on board of such a company will be disqualified to be the director and has to vacate the office of director from all the companies.
Here is the notice put up on the MCA’s website www.mca.gov.in.
Earlier, MCA had also put up notice on its website that such directors are advised to not make any application for Name availability or Incorporation of a Company. It further said that forms filed by such Directors will be rejected by the system.
Over 2 lakh directors of the shell companies have been barred from having a board post. As per one of the tweets by the Ministry of Finance, the Directors and Authorised Signatories of such companies will now be ex-Directors and ex-Authorised signatories and will not be allowed to be on board of any company.
The existing Directors and Authorized Signatories of such struck off companies will now become ex Directors or ex Authorized Signatories.
— Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) September 5, 2017
MCA has put up the list of struck off companies and the directors associated with such companies on its website.
Click here to view list of directors associated with these struck of companies.
Click here to view the struck off companies.
Click here to view the list of directors disqualified under Section 164(2)(a).
Restrictions have also been put on the bank accounts of these struck off companies by the banks as advised by the Department of Financial Services. The bank accounts of such companies will not be operative till such companies are legally restored.
In case the name of your company has been struck of and you need to restore the same, you need to make an application to National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Once the application if approved by NCLT, the status of the company will be “Active”.
Can this happen to your company?
Even though a company has “active” status on the MCA’s website but is defaulting in filing of its financial statements and / or annual returns, such a company will still be watched by MCA with suspicion.
If you have not filed the annual returns for your company, do it now. You can file the forms by paying filing fees and penalty.
If your company is inactive and you do not want to close the company, you should convert the status of your company to ‘dormant’. Click here to know more.
Else, get it struck off voluntarily to avoid any unnecessary scrutiny. Click here to know the procedure to strike off the name of your company.
For any further queries, you can write to me at kruti@cskruti.com