MCA Notification

New MCA Scheme for Condonation of Delay of Certain Companies

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs announced vide circular no. 3/2021 for condonation of delay scheme for companies restored by National Company Law Tribunal between December 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, under Section 252 of the Companies Act, 2013. Consequently, all additional fees that is payable for delayed filing of any overdue e-forms shall be waived under this new scheme. Let’s look at this MCA scheme in detail.

An overview and background of the MCA scheme

The government during the financial year 2017-18 and 18-19 struck off more than 3.38 lakh companies from the official records due to failure in submitting annual returns. It is now expected that many companies would benefit from this scheme which is called the Scheme for the Condonation of delay for companies restored on the companies register between December 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, under Section 252 of the Companies Act, 2013.

In simple words, this scheme would provide a waiver of additional fee on any overdue filings of e-forms with the ROC. The new scheme shall take effect from February 1. The MCA also stated that the Companies Fresh Start Scheme 2020 that began in March 2020 and extended in September 2020 shall not be applicable anymore for various filings done under the Companies Act, 2013 provisions.

In 2020, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had introduced the Companies Fresh Start Scheme. This scheme expired on 31^st December, 2020 and is not applicable now for various filings under the Companies Act, 2013. However, the Corporate Affairs ministry received several representations from companies specifying that they appealed under Section 252 of Companies Act 2013^[1] against the orders of striking off the names of companies before the National Company Law Tribunal benches and the orders in pursuant to that were issued in the month of December 2020.

Therefore such companies were not able to avail the benefit of filing under the Companies Fresh Start Scheme by 31^st December 2020 and therefore were liable to pay additional fees on the filing of overdue e-forms. Considering this situation, the new scheme introduced by the MCA is issued to provide benefits to these companies.

What is the objective of this new MCA scheme?

The objective of the scheme is as follows:

• To provide benefit of filing the overdue forms for restored companies by National Company Law Tribunal; and
• To provide the waiver of additional fees for restored companies.

Applicability of this MCA Scheme

This scheme shall be applicable for companies that are restored by the National Company Law Tribunal between December 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.

Effective date and duration of the scheme

The scheme would commence from February 1, 2021 and it would be available for filing of any overdue e-forms by such companies until March 31, 2021. 

Forms to be filed under the scheme

All e-forms other than SH-7 (for increase in authorized share capital) and charge forms (CHG-1, CHG-4, CHG-8, and CHG-9).

Fees applicable

Companies to which this scheme shall apply are required to pay normal filing fees on the date of filing under the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014, and no additional fee is needed to be paid.

Conclusion

It may be noted that the new MCA scheme shall not be applicable to companies whose applications were accepted during December 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, but the National Company Law Tribunal didn’t issue the order during this period. Only those companies are eligible for the scheme who were issued the order during the aforementioned dates. For better understanding you can refer to the MCA circular.

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