Centre disqualifies over 2 lakh directors of shell companies within 15 days

NEW DELHI: In yet another crackdown on the shell companies, the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has disqualified over two lakh directors within a span of 15 days for not filing their financial statements or annual returns for two consecutive years in violation of the provisions of Companies Act, 2013.

After the recent crackdown, the total number of directors disqualified by the ministry has reached 3,00,000.

According to the ministry officials, a total of 3,19,637 directors were disqualified, while 2,17,239 companies were deregistered.

A senior official of the department said that this data is only from five banks, and the number is expected to go up, once they receive data from 30 banks.

“The number we have got from banks is very surprising,” the official said adding that one shell company has been found to have as many as 2,100 bank accounts.

Without naming the company, he revealed that there are about 50 companies which had multiple banks accounts ranging around 450, 600, 900 and 2,100 etc

“These companies are on MCA radar and investigation is going on. We are trying to track down the modus operandi of these companies,” the MCA official said.

The official also informed that the ministry wrote a letter to Indian Banks Association (IBA) on September 8, asking for a reply within a month.

“We have given a format to the banks. In that format, we have asked about the pre- and post- demonetisation deposits and withdrawals details. Some more details have been asked so that we can get refined data about the shell companies,” the official added.

Earlier on September 12, over one lakh directors were disqualified by the ministry.

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