New Initiatives: Investor Complaint E-form

In our earlier newsletter dated 5^th December 2018, we had discussed about Serious Complaint Form (SCP) which dealt with reporting of serious complaints against a company by filing it on MCA

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has now introduced e-form ICP (Investor complaint eForm).http://www.mca.gov.in/MinistryV2/companyformsdownload.html 

The form was introduced for reporting complaint related to shares, debentures, bonds, fixed deposits, etc. against a company/LLP by filing it on MCA. This is an additional facility to lodge compliant other than handing over a written complaint directly to MCA official in the office of Registrar of Companies.

However, complaints related to complaint/grievances of Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC), Residuary Non-Banking Company (RNBC) registered with RBI have to be filed with RBI.

Listed companies and also the companies which intend to get their securities listed on any recognized stock exchange can file their complaints related to issue and transfer of securities and non-payment of dividend with SEBI. Other complaints can be filed with MCA.

Chit fund companies and real estate companies can file their complaints with the concerned regulatory authority

Who can file a complaint?

• Shareholder
•  Investor
• Creditor
• Employee (It is unclear why ‘employee’ category is appearing in this form)
•  Deposit holders
•  Others (who do not belong to the above categories)

An illustrative list of Circumstances in which Compliant can be lodged is as under:       

• Complaints relating to non-receipt of various certificates w.r.t. shares, debentures, bonds
• Non-receipt of bonus shares, offer for the right shares, notice for call money, share application money, dividend warrant, etc
•    Non-receipt of interest w.r.t. debentures, bonds and fixed depositsNon- receipt of Redemption amount
• Non-receipt of payment as per Company Law Board (CLB) order
• Non-receipt of Pre-matured payments and matured amount of fixed deposits
• Non-receipt of Annual Report and registration of change in address and other miscellaneous complaints

For details, you can visit http://www.mca.gov.in/MinistryV2/companyformsdownload.html

No fee is prescribed for this form. Further, unlike other forms to be filed on MCA, there is no requirement of having Digital Signature Certificate (DSC). Once the form is filed, an acknowledgment email is sent to the complainant on the email id mentioned in the form