75% foreign cos yet to register with RoC

NEW DELHI: Over 75% of the foreign companies operating in India have not filed their balance sheets with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). A test analysis carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General says out of 1,840 foreign companies, 1,400 had not filed their papers with the Delhi RoC — the registering office for foreign firms.

There are 303 non-banking financial companies accepting deposits from public but without a certificate of registration from RBI. But no action was taken by the RoCs of Orissa, Rajasthan, MP and Meghalaya, for bringing these to the notice of RBI, for prosecution of companies.

Commenting on the continued differences between the ministry, the RBI and Sebi on taking action against unscrupulous promoters, the report says “no institutional mechanism for correlation of activities, information & data with statutory bodies was in place,” in several RoCs. While RBI data said there are 2,438 NBFCs, the RoC records showed that only 1,274 were registered.

The report has slammed the performance of the ministry of company affairs, under which RoC offices function. It concludes “the ministry has failed to perform its primary function of administering the Companies Act, 1956, especially in the area of identification of defaulting companies & launching prosecutions against them.”

It has also criticised the performance of the Investor Education and Protection Fund, saying that out of the possible Rs 321 crore that could have come to it, only Rs 6.4 crore was spent for investor awareness in 2002-05.