In furtherance of the Ministry’s General Circular No. 11/2020 dated 24th March, 2020 and in order to facilitate the Companies registered in India to make a fresh start on a clean slate, Ministry has decided to take certain remedial measures for the benefit of all Companies.
The Ministry has granted the one-time opportunity to all the Companies to complete their pending compliances by filing necessary documents in the MCA-21 registry including annual filings without being subject to a higher additional fees on account of any delay.
In order to give such an opportunity to the defaulting companies and to enable them to file the belated documents, the Central Government in excercise of powers conferrerd under Section 460 read with Section 403 of the Companies Act, 2013 has decided to introduce a Scheme namely “Companies Fresh Start Scheme, 2020 (CFSS-2020)” .
Only normal fees for filing of documents in the MCA-21 registry will be payable in such case during the currency of CFSS-2020 as per the provisions of Section 403 read with Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014 and Section 460 of the Act.
In addition, this scheme gives an opportunity to inactive Companies to get their Companies declared as ‘Dormant Company’ under Section 455 of the Companies Act, 2013 by filing a simple application at a normal fee.
The details of the Scheme are as under-
(i) The Scheme shall come into force on 01.04.2020 and shall remain in force till 30.09.2020.
(ii) Company means a Company as defined in clause (20) of Section 2 of the Companies Act, 2013;
(iii) Defaulting Company means a company which has made a default in filing of any of the documents, statement, returns, etc including annual statutory documents on the MCA-21 registry.
(iv) Inactive Company means a company as defined in explanation (i) of sub-section (1) of Section 455(1) of the Companies Act, 2013.
(v) Designated Authority means the Registrar of Companies having jurisdiction over the registered office of the Company.
Applicability-
Any defaulting company is permitted to file belated documents which were due for filing on any given date in accordance with the provisions of the scheme.
CFSS 2020 shall not apply on the following cases-
- to companies against which action for final notice for striking off the name u/s 248 of the Companies Act, 2013 (previously section 560 of the Companies Act, 1956) has been already initiated by the Designated Authority;
- where any application has already been filed by the companies for action of striking off the name of the company from the register of companies;
- to companies which have amalgamated;
- where applications have already been filed for obtaining Dormat Status u/s 455 of the Companies Act, 2013 before this scheme;
- to vanishing companies;
- where any increase in authorised capital is involved (form SH-7) and also charge related documents (CHG-1, CHG-4, CHG-8 and CHG-9);
Author Bio
Thank you Sir, this was useful to advise my client at Bangalore. Will be needing your support and collaboration. Regards, Naveen Tao, Advocate – 8867378881.