More than 3.8 lakh organizations have been struck off from official records under the companies law in the past three years, as indicated by the government. In a composed answer to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Anurag Singh Thakur additionally said the term “shell company” is not defined under the Companies Act. It normally refers to a company without active business operation or significant assets, which in some cases are used for illegal purposes such as tax evasion, money laundering, obscuring ownership, Benami properties, etc,” he added.
The Special Task Force set up by the government to investigate the issue of shell companies has suggested the utilization of certain red-flag indicators as alarms for the ID of shell companies. As per the minister, the government has embraced an exceptional drive for identification and afterward to strike off-shell companies. Based on the non-filing of financial statements consecutively for two years or more, companies were identified and after following due process of law, “3,82,581 number of companies were struck off during the last three years”, Thakur said.
This was done as given under Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013, read with the Companies (Removal of Names of Companies from the Register of Companies) Rules, 2016. In a separate composed answer, the minister said that under Section 182 of the Companies Act, organizations, other than government organizations and organizations less than three years of age, are permitted legitimately or by implication to add to any political party with the approval of their boards of directors.
Such companies shall have to disclose in its profit and loss account the total amount contributed by them during the financial year to which the account relates and the name of the party is not required to be disclosed. Therefore, political party-wise data is not maintained,” he said.
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