DIR 3 KYC – Is it required to be filed again this year?

MCA had notified Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) fourth Amendment Rules, 2018. As per the Amendment Rules notified on July 10, 2018 all the Individuals holding DIN were required to file DIR 3 KYC form on or before October 15, 2018. The Rule 12A further provided that ‘Every individual who has been allotted a Director Identification Number (DIN) as on 31st March of a financial year as per these rules shall, submit e-form DIR-3-KYC to the Central Government on or before 30th April of immediate next financial year.’

Now question arose that is it again required to file KYC Form for all individual on or before April 30, 2019?

There were many Whatsapp forward is being circulated:

“This is to inform you that MCA FAQs clearly states that for Financial year 2018-19 – Any person who has been allotted “Director Identification Number (DIN/DPIN)” on or before 31st March 2018 and the status of such DIN is ‘Approved’, needs to file form DIR-3 KYC to update KYC details in the system on or before 15th September 2018.

For Financial year 2019-20 onwards – Every Director who has been allotted DIN on or before the end of the financial year, and whose DIN status is ‘Approved’, would be mandatorily required to file form DIR-3 KYC before 30th April of the immediately next financial year.

Conclusion – No clarification is required to sought from MCA as it is already clarified that DIR – 3 KYC filed by 15th September, 2018 is a compliance filing till 31 March 2019 and for the financial year from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, DIR – 3 KYC is required to be filed by April 30, 2020.”

While the conclusion of the above seems very logical and reasonable, DIR 3 KYC form is also not accepting DIN for the individuals who have already filed DIN for year 2018. Therefore, many have started believing that the Individual are not required to file DIR 3 KYC Form this year.

Current Status: While there are so many ifs and but are going on about filing requirement, looking at the current Rule 12A of Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Rules, 2014 it is clear that every Individuals are required to file DIR 3 KYC once again by April 30, 2019. To summarise situation:

• As per Rules, all Individuals who are holding DIN as on March 31, 2019 are required to file the Form DIR 3 KYC on or before April 30, 2019.
• However, looking at current infrastructure (inability to do pre-fill the DIN number) it is impossible to file the form for the current year unless MCA comes up with the update.

So as of today, viz. April 11, 2019, we are still awaiting a clarification from MCA on subject matter to decide whether it is required to file the Form DIR3 KYC or not.