The Companies Act keeps revising the rules and regulations to bring about uniformity and stability in the process of doing business. There are many businesses or companies which are incorporated, but would not have followed the rules or are not updated with the amendments made by the Government. So now I’ll be discussing about one of the new amendment implemented in the Companies rules.
The Central Government has further amended the Companies rules 2014 which is referred to as Companies (Incorporation) Amendment Rules 2019 which will be effective from 25th February 2019.
This newly framed rule 22A is known as the Active Company Tagging and Verification and is not applicable to companies incorporated as on and after 1st January 2018.
Every company which is incorporated till the date of 31st December 2017 mandatorily needs to file its company details and registered office in the e-Form, before the due date as per the rules in Form 22A, failing upon which have to bear negative consequences.
Now let us look into the details for filing the e-Form 22A like who needs to file, exempted companies, pre requisites and consequences of non-filing.
Who are eligible to file the e-Form 22A:
- Companies incorporated on or before 31st December 2017
- The companies eligible to file should have made all their financial statements and annual returns under section 92 and 137.
Which companies is restricted from filing the e-Form 22A:
- Companies incorporated after 31st December 2017
- Companies which have been struck off or are under process of striking off, or under liquidation or amalgamated or dissolved, as recorded in the register
- Companies which have not filed financial statements and annual returns under section 92 and 137 due to management disputes and the Registrar has recorded the same on the register
- The company will be marked as ACTIVE Non-compliant if the above said particulars are not intimated.
What are the essential requirements for filing e-Form 22A:
- Before filing e-Form the Directors DIN number must be in ACTIVE status
- The Directors DIN must have been updated with DIR3KYC
- There should not be any disqualification of the Director due the non compliance Section 164 (2) which refers to the disqualification of directors
- Photographs of the exterior and interior of the office premises
- One of the Director’s photograph needs be affixed with the Digital Signature to the e-Form,
So these are certain requirements to be an ACTIVE Complaint. If these requirements are not fulfilled there are certain consequences to be borne which includes:
- The Company will be ACTIVE non-compliant after 26th April 2019
- A physical verification of the Company will be conducted by the Registrar and if the Company is found default in complying with the provisions, then the Registrar may remove the company name from the Registrar of Companies.
So, all the entrepreneurs and companies need to be alert on the changes happening in the Companies Act and take immediate actions. The process maybe new to Companies and disturbing, but these rules are mainly implemented to make the business operations authentic and up to date.
You can also approach experts to get your work done, one of the being Aavana Corporate Solutions Pvt Ltd, business consultants who have their footprints in India and globally. Taking expert advise on such issues and acting immediately will save companies penalties and the fear of being removed from the Registrar of Companies.
