Govt eases claim settlement process under IEPFA

The government has simplified the claim settlement process under the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA), including allowing self-attestation of documents instead of the current requirement of notarisation. IEPFA, which comes under the administrative control of the corporate affairs ministry, has been set up for administration of investor funds under the companies law. The authority has the mandate to promote investor education and protection, refund unclaimed shares, dividends and other amounts that have been transferred to it to the rightful claimants.

The claim settlement process has been further simplified through the rationalisation of various requirements under the IEPFA (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Rules, 2016.

"The new regime envisages a trust-based model for faster citizen-centric services and turnaround time. It is expected that with these changes, many more claimants shall come forward to claim their shares and amounts from IEPFA," an official statement said on Friday.


For claimants, the requirement of advance receipt has been waived off and the requirement of succession certificate/ probate of will/ will has been relaxed up to Rs 5 lakh, both for physical and demat shares.

Besides, notarisation of documents has been replaced with self-attestation, and requirements of affidavits and surety relatively have been eased, the statement said.

For companies, requirement of attaching documents related to Unclaimed Suspense Account has been eased, and companies have been given flexibility to accept transmission document as per their internal approved procedures.

In addition, "newspaper advertisement requirement for loss of physical share certificate has been waived off up to an amount of Rs 5,00,000", the statement said.

Till date, IEPFA has approved more than 20,000 claims refunding more than 1.29 crore shares. Shares of market value of over Rs 1,011 crore and dividends and other amounts exceeding Rs 20 crore have been refunded.