The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has in order to improve service delivery to the Corporate Sector recently taken initiatives for further simplifying procedures under the Companies Act, 1965 and the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008. These include:
(a) Company Law Settlement Scheme: The scheme was initially notified w.e.f. 12.08.2011 to enable the Companies failing to file their annual returns and financial statements to file the same. This measure has elicited a good response and so far 61875 documents have been filed yielding the revenue of Rs. 7.71 crore. As the demand for availing of this concession is persistent, a decision has been taken to extend this one time measure till 15.12.2011.
(b) Integration of Director’s Identification Number (DIN) with PAN data base: The MCA has already simplified the procedure of online allotment of DIN on the basis of verification with PAN data base through a practicing professional. To remove duplicate DINs, the existing DIN holders have been called upon to update their PAN details, and the time limit has for the purpose has been extended till 15th December, 2011.
(c) Reducing Delay in approval of e-forms by Registrar of Companies: Earlier, the Registrar of Companies (ROCs) were allowed a period of 120 days for approval of e-forms, inclusive of time taken, if any, for seeking clarifications from the companies concerned. To reduce the pendency and to expedite approvals, the time limit has been reduced to 60 days.
(d) Improvements in the LLP e-Governance Service: Filing of annual statement of accounts by Limited Liability Partnership has now been brought up under the ‘Straight Through Process ‘(STP) procedure. Further, documents filed by LLP are now available for public viewing.