News from the desk of ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT), national company law tribunal (NCLT)

News from the Desk of Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) 

MCA had vide its circular dated 24^th day of December, 2020 brought about the Companies (Incorporation) Third Amendment Rules, 2020 (Amended Rules).

The present rule 9 provides that the name approved by the Central Registration Centre, Registrar of Companies is valid for 20 days from the date of approval. The Amended Rules has inserted rule 9A, which enables an applicant to apply before the Central Registration Centre, Registrar of Companies for extension of validity of reserved name over and above the normal validity period of 20 days, on payment of additional statutory fee as under:

1. Extension upto 40 days from the date of approval of name as per rule 9 on payment of INR 1,000 (Indian Rupees One thousand Only) made before the expiry of 20 days from the date of approval of name under rule 9;
2. Extension upto 60 days from the date of approval of name as per rule 9 on payment of INR 2,000 (Indian Rupees Two thousand Only) made before the expiry of 40 days from the date of approval of name under rule 9;
3. Extension upto 60 days from the date of approval of name as per rule 9 on payment of INR 3,000 (Indian Rupees Three thousand Only) made before the expiry of 20 days from the date of approval of name under rule 9

The above amendment is effective from 26^th day of January, 2021.

The complete text of the Circular may be viewed at below link:

http://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/ThirdAmdtRules_24122020.pdf 

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) had vide its Public Notice no. 34/2015-20 dated 24^th day of December, 2020, amended the existing Para 2.14 of the Chapter 2 of the Handbook of Procedures, 2015-2020 which relates to provisions relating to Modification of Permanent Account Number (PAN) based Importer Exporter Code (IEC).

The amendments specifies the following:

1. In case there is a change in the constitution of an entity possessing the PAN based IEC on account of a merger, acquisition, liquidation, inheritance etc. in such a way that the PAN of the new entity so formed is different from the earlier one, an IEC can be availed against the new PAN, if not existing already.

2. Previous IEC’s can also be linked operationally to the PAN/IEC of the new entity, for which an online application can be submitted to the jurisdictional RA of the new entity along with supporting documents for linking the obligations under the old/previous IEC. Post sanction from the given linkage after due scrutiny of the evidence provided by the applicant including submission of the affidavits etc, the previous IEC shall be treated as surrendered.

The complete text of the Notice may be viewed at below link:

https://content.dgft.gov.in/Website/dgftprod/a50f1e39-e373-40e8-8a27-5bb40a9b1d68/PN%20English.pdf

The National Company Law Tribunal to Start Second Phase of E-Courts Mandatorily From 1st Jan 2020. The National Company Law Tribunal, has decided to start the second phase of e-court which is Automatic Case Number Generation for all the benches wherein e-filing procedure has been implemented. The order was issued after the approval of the Hon’ble Acting President Shri BSV Prakash Kumar. In the order it was informed that the Competent Authority has decided that Automatic Case Number Generation should be mandatorily started from 1st January 2021 in all the branches across the country. It was further informed that an automatic number has to be generated from E- Filing portal i.e., efiling.nclt.gov.in. This Order came in to complete the E- court stages which include e-filing, Automatic Case Number Generation, e-scrutiny, Case allocation & e-cause list generation. The NCLT conceptualized e-courts in 2017 and now e-filing has been mandatorily started in all the benches of NCLT across the Country.

The complete text of the Notice may be viewed at below link:

https://ibbi.gov.in/uploads/legalframwork/c0e9da77beb8bcef58bfe30414582903.pdf

Last updated: 31/12/2020

Article contributed by:

Munesh Gaur

Senior Associate- Legal

MBG Corporate Services