Extension of Deadline: Now convert your Physical Shares to Demat till 31st March-2019

In a major move taken by the capital market regulator, SEBI, it has given a big relief to the investors at large who are still holding the physical shares of the listed companies but have not converted them into Demat format till date and the last date to convert such shares was 5^th December, 2018 as per Semicircular dated 6^th November 2018. Now this deadline to covert the physical shares into Demat have been extended till 31^st March 2019.

SEBI vide press release (2018 PR No.: 49/2018) dated 3rd December, 2018 has extended the deadline and the requirement of transfer of securities only in Demat form shall now come into force from April 1, 2019

Originally, SEBI, on March 28, 2018, decided that except in case of transmission or transposition of securities, requests for effecting transfer of securities shall not be processed unless the securities are held in the dematerialized form with a depository. This measure was to come into effect from December 5, 2018 meanwhile SEBI received lot of representations from shareholders seeking for extension of the date of compliance for at least 100 days and accordingly, vide Press release dated 3^rd December 2018, it has been extended till 31^st March 2019 thereby providing soothing relief to Lakhs of investors and professionals of various such executing bodies who are engaged at various places in the entire process were highlighting lot of difficulties faced in providing documents for effecting transfer of securities and the documents sought used to vary across RTAs (Registrar & Transfer Agent) for the cases relating to transfer of old shares in physical form where PAN card of transfer or not available, name mismatch, signature mismatch etc. SEBI has laid down standard process in such cases so that there remains not ambiguity.

SEBI gave a perfect New Year bonanza for Investor who is finding it difficult due to cumbersome and ambiguous process to transfer their Old physical shares. Now they will have the sufficient time to arrange or process their documents to execute this once in lifetime activity.