APPLICABILITY – TO WHOM IT IS APPLICABLE?

Every company (other than Government Company) which has accepted loans / deposits / share application money or money through any other mode is required to do compliance by filling DPT-3 form with Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The said form DPT-3 is prescribed in law to file return of deposits. It is a one – time return of outstanding receipts of money or loans taken by a company which has not been considered as deposits.

On 22nd January 2019, the MCA came up with a new amendment in the Companies (Acceptance of Deposits), Rules, 2014. As per the said amendment, every company (other than the Government Company) has to file a one-time return of deposits including those which have not been treated as deposits by the company previously.

Earlier, only the disclosure with respect to acceptance of deposits by the Company had to be given in Form DPT-3 wherein other modes through which monies were accepted (like loans, borrowings, loans from Directors or employees, Share Application monies etc.) were exempted and no disclosure had to be provided relating to such exempted monies. But now the Government intends to have database of all monies borrowed by the Companies whether in the form of Deposits / Loans / Borrowings / any other form and therefore monies borrowed by the Company through any mode, whether deposit or not, has to be disclosed in Form DPT-3.

WHAT IS DEPOSIT?

Section 2 (31) of the Companies Act, 2013 defines deposits as – “Deposits include any receipt of money by way of deposit or loan or in any other form by a company but does not include such categories of amount as may be prescribed in consultation with Reserve Bank of India.”

EFFECT OF AMENDMENT RELATING TO FILING THE DETAILS OF DEPOSITS?

Every company (other than Government Company) to which these rules apply, is required to file one-time return of Outstanding receipt of money or loan by a company but not considered as deposits, in terms of clause (c) of sub-rule 1 of Rule 2 from the 01st April, 2014 to the date of publication of this notification in the Official Gazette, as specified in Form DPT-3 within Ninety days from the date of said publication of this notification along with fee as provided in the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014.”

EFFECT OF AMENDMENT:

ANOMALIES IN FORM DPT-3:

https://www.lexblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DPT3.jpg

A great initiative taken by Government to track the monies received by the Companies in form of Deposits or through any mode other than deposits or both.

  Though Form DPT-3 has been introduced with a good motive, the same fails to provide clarity on various areas. Form DPT-3 is quite an open – ended form as there are various anomalies which have been pointed out on 25th March, 2019, few of which are pointed out below:

CONCLUSION:

This move seems to be part of government’s increasing efforts towards tracing any bogus transactions / black money. Therefore, the Government has come up with the Amendment to track the outstanding monies or loans taken by all the Companies other than Government Companies to know the exact status of money inflow and outflow.

Below is the link to the notification published in the Official Gazette by Ministry of Corporate Affairs:

http://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/AcceptanceDepositsAmendmentRule_22012019.pdf

Author:

Ruchi Mehta

Please feel free to write to us on amita@apmh.in / ruchi@apmh.in for any further queries on the above blog.