The Minister of Corporate Affairs has informed the Lok Sabha that the number of companies that have not filed their Annual Return consecutively during the last three years – 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09, is 2,13,185. Of these the maximum number of 67,858 companies are from the Western Region; 66,345 companies are from the Southern Region; 63,802 companies from the Northern Region and 15,180 companies are from the Eastern Region. Giving this information in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today on the ‘Easy Exit Scheme- 2010’ and the ‘Company Law Settlement Scheme, 2010’,
Shri Salman Khurshid, Minister of Corporate Affairs, said that under the ‘Easy Exit Scheme- 2010’ (EES) defunct companies can get their names struck off the Register of Companies under section 560 of the Companies Act, 1956, by filing an application in the form EES, 2010, with indemnity bond, affidavit verifying correctness of the application and defunctness of the company and up to date statement of accounts. The Minister further informed the House that under ‘Company Law Settlement Scheme- 2010’ on payment of 25% of the actual additional fees payable for filing belated documents delay gets condoned and immunity from prosecution is granted.
CS Debashish Dey is very correct in his comments/observations. The database in the MoCA is absolutely unreliable as the information is sourced from the inefficient and corrupt ROCs. Moreover, the figures from the Eastern region cannot be correct at all, since Calcutta has, right from the beginning of India’s corporate history, been the place for “name-plate”/”table-space” companies. There used to be and still are thousands of companies with the same address with the same room no., same floor, same premises/building, same road/street, same PIN code and even the same telephone no. And it is the same even in the remote parts of this hapless and God-forsaken state. And, further, the statistics are silent about the past sinners-is it because of the hidden policy of “forget and forgive”?
The Minister should first realise that his ministry needs to set its own house right first before pursuing the issue.
Out of the gigantic numbers declared by the Minister, at least 80% are Companies which have either merged, winded up or transferred its registerd office to a different state.
However due to lack of any ‘system’ to update its own database regarding the same the RoC is coming up with such stupid figures & harassing the Directors by sending notice’s of non-compliance & wasting staggering amount of public money just get some publicity that they are ‘there’ & working very ‘hard'(ly) to make things better….
I feel it is high time that our professional faternities should wake up & try to put forth this important point before the Minister if we really want things to change….