Default Companies : Condonation of Delay Scheme Extended Till 30th April

The Condonation of Delay Scheme 2018 has been extended by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, up to 30^th April.

The circular issued by the Ministry, reads as follows: “In continuation to the Ministry's General Circular No. 16/2017, dated 29/12/2017 on the subject cited above, this Ministry has, on consideration of requests received from various stakeholders, has decided to extend the Condonation of Delay Scheme, 2018 up to 30th April 2018.”

The Condonation of Delay Scheme was notified by the Ministry, vide a circular dated 29^th December 2017. The scheme was originally envisaged to remain effective till 31^st March 2018.

The MCA had introduced the Condonation of Delay (COD) scheme to benefit 3,09,614 directors associated with the companies that had failed to file financial statements or annual returns in the MCA21 online registry for a continuous period of three financial years 2013-14 to 2015-16 as per Section 164(2) of the Companies Act.

Such companies which have been struck off /whose names have been removed from the register of companies under section 248(5) of the Act can take advantage of the Scheme. On adopting the above scheme, the concerned Registrar will withdraw all the pending the prosecution(s) for all documents filed under the scheme.

“However, this scheme is without prejudice to action under section 167(2) of the Act or civil and criminal liabilities, if any, of such disqualified directors during the period they remained disqualified.”

The circular issued by the ministry extending the deadline can be found here.