This article is written by Saumya Krishnani, pursuing a Diploma in Business Laws for In-House Counsels from LawSikho.

Introduction 

The Ministry is primarily concerned with the administration of the 2013 Companies Act, the 1956 Companies Act, the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 & other allied laws and regulations framed therein, primarily to control the corporate sector’s law-based operation.

Furthermore, three technical bodies (ICAI) are supervised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India.

The MCA enables you to access all registered companies / LLPs’ public records. Public records of a company/LLP on payment of a fee can be viewed.

What are the documents can can be inspected 

• The licenses,
• Incorporation documents,
• Change in managers, 
• Documents for Charge,
• eForms Annual Returns and Balance Sheet,
• LLP Molds (Conversion of company to LLP),
• Other Documents on eForm, and
• Submitted Other Attachments to MCA.

It becomes a public record until these records are accepted by the government, and is thus made available to the general public for review.

Modes for viewing the document 

There are two different modes which a person can view the documents:

1. Online mode, and 
2. Physical mode/ ROC.

Online mode 

For the purposes of accessing records, the forms filed by the Organization on the MCA Site ‘View Public Documents’ service shall be made available to the MCA.

If the user just needs to access public documents, then logging into the MCA Portal is not necessary, but if the user wants to download public documents, before following this procedure, he must log into the MCA Portal.

Steps to view the document 

Step 1: Firstly you need to login on the MCA portal http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/viewPublicDocumentsFilter.do

You need to click on MCA services, and then click on the view public document under the Document related services. 

Step 2: After that, you need to mention various details to view the document i.e. 

• Company name 
• Company CIN/FCRN
• Company Registration  number 
• Country of origin 
• State

And after that, submit all the details to view the document. 

Step 3: List of documents will be shown and you need to select the year of filing, and category of document and then click on the add this company to cart for the further procedure. 

Step 4: After that, you need to select on make payment and select the mode of payment, Via Credit/ Prepaid Card or Internet Banking, you can make online payments. You can also use Challan, Pay via NEFT or Pay later to make offline payments.

Step 5: When the payment is made, you will receive the SRN number and you can save the SRN number for future use. 

Step 6: The processing of the application on the MCA Portal takes 24 hours. After 24 hours, you can see the status of your login request. Under My Workspace > Papers, it will be.

If the payment is made, the user can download the forms and documents. “Under the “Documents” tab, the company for which the payment is made will be represented in “My workspace.

Physical Mode/ROC

The registry maintained by the ROC and the documents filed with it by the company are available for public inspection upon payment of the prescribed fee. Information issued to the public by the ROC includes the certificate of incorporation, the company’s address, the details of the directors, the registered capital, the essence of the business, the company’s accounts, the details of the shareholders, etc.

The ROC search report (‘search report’) is a report prepared by the CA, CS or Advocate procedure after review of a company’s documents or records kept with the ROC. The specifics of a company’s documents are a guide for stakeholders or banks.

Process of viewing document through ROC

The search report is prepared either by visiting the ROC physically and reviewing the documents and records, or by inspecting the documents available on the website of the MCA. Before going to the ROC to check the documents or records, the prescribed fee is to be charged physically. 

Along with the Challan paid for the fees, the person inspecting must visit the ROC. The Challan must be in the name of the person going for inspection, or if the Challan is in the name of a corporation, he should have an authority letter with him.

If the inspection is conducted via the website of the MCA, the charge must be charged by logging in to the website. The fee is charged on the website via the payment options offered. If the fee is charged, records can be accessed under the tab ‘MCA Services’ under the ‘View Public Record’ option present. The records are available for viewing for one week after payment of the invoice, and not for more than three hours on an ongoing basis.

Use of search report 

It was felt that examination of the Books of Accounts, taken in isolation, would not serve a great deal of function. Indeed, there is a possibility that such inspections can be taken as part of an administrative routine in the present form, as provided for under S209 A of the Act.

Without accomplishing much, there would be a considerable expenditure of time and energy on both the inspecting agency and the company. A presumption of breach cannot allow compliance with the rule. Nor can it be assured by physically inspecting the participating organizations. If that were the case, implementing any legal framework would be virtually impossible.

In general, before granting loans, banks require a search report to determine the company. The search report allows them to defend themselves from any default business or business that has default directors. By preparing a search report, the history and title of the property owned by the company can be traced as it provides information of charge holders, hypothecation, generated mortgage that will help the banks at the time of granting the loan.

It allows shareholders to know the company’s status. In order to know the status of their shares held in the company and the date on which their shares were transferred, they can obtain a search report. Since the search report contains the full history of the company since its incorporation, it will allow them to decide before investing in the company.

Investigations

The central government may be empowered to appoint inspectors to carry out an investigation, either on its own, if it is of the opinion that such an investigation is necessary in the public interest, or at the request of the company pursuant to a special resolution, or at the request of the court or tribunal, or of the members of the company having the required number of shares as may be defined.

The Committee is of the opinion that it is important to take the investigation of the affairs of a corporation seriously. Once taken up, the imposition of sanctions should result in a deterrent. In order to be successful in the investigation process, sufficient powers should be given to force the organization to take steps to allow a thorough investigation, including the production of relevant documents. A mechanism to allow this is provided for in the current Act. However, the Committee suggests that this system should be tested and made more functional. Powers to ask for an audit of a company’s documents will be part of this structure.

MCA inspection on Bitcoin company

An inspection of a Bitcoin Company has been carried out by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) through the Registrar of Companies and prosecutions have been filed for violations under various provisions of the Companies Act, Parliament was told on Monday.

In response to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Singh Thakur reported that the Ministry had conducted an inspection of ZEB IT Services Pvt. Ltd by the Registrar of Companies (RoC), Ahmedabad, to investigate the aspects of dealing with bitcoins.

Thakur further noted that one more company registered with RoC, Karnataka, Uno coin Technologies Pvt Ltd, is up-to-date in filing statutory returns and no complaints have been issued.

The Minister claimed that, according to MCA documents, Jet Airways is under the corporate insolvency resolution phase while Airtel Broadband Services is amalgamated, asking if many major companies operating in different sectors are on the verge of insolvency.

Conclusion 

Until becoming the company’s director, a person may get a search report prepared. He will get to know the new directors and the company’s assets and liabilities. Until concluding an agreement or contract with the company, customers or suppliers may receive a search report from the company.

DSC refers to a Certificate with Digital Signature. It must be obtained from a certifying organization that the government has approved. All the forms require a valid DSC as the registration process is now online. The cost of the acquisition of DSC can vary, mostly depending on the certifying agency from which it can be bought. You need to have a DSC to file a SPICe (INC-32) form, but you do not need a DSC to access the RUN and file it.

References 

• https://learn.quicko.com/mca-portal-view-public-documents
• https://www.corporate-cases.com/2013/01/inspection-of-public-documents.html

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