MCA vide its notification No. G.S.R.1267(E)  dated 13.10.2017 has issued the Investor Education Protection Fund(“IEPF”) (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Second Amendment Rules, 2017 which amends certain provisions as provided under the Investor Education Protection Fund (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Rules, 2016 (“principal rules”).

Gist of amendments to the principal rules:

• The due date for transfer of shares in case where the period of seven years as per the section 124(5) of the Companies Act, 2013 has been completed during the period from 7^th September, 2016 to 31^st October, 2017 is now amended from 31^st May, 2017 to 31^st October, 2017.
• New insertion – The transfer of shares by the Company to IEPF shall be deemed to be transmission of shares and procedure for transmission of shares shall be followed by the Companies while transferring shares to IEPF.
• The procedure for transfer of shares to IEPF for the transferring shares held in physical mode has been revised to consider the fact that in such cases of transfer, New share certificates shall be issued (earlier Duplicate share certificates were to be issued in such cases of transfer).
• New sub rules have been inserted namely –
• Sub-rule 13 which specifies that the amounts that are to be credited by the Companies as mentioned under sub-rules 10,11 and 12 shall be remitted to the specified account of the IEPF authority maintained in the Punjab National bank. (refer general circular dated 16.10.2017).
• Sub-rule 14 which states that the IEPF authority shall report to the Central Government as and when non-compliance of the rules by the Companies came to its knowledge.
• Proviso to sub-rule 3 & 7 are added regarding the   verification report to be sent by the Company to the IEPF authority for claims application received by the company.

Effective date of the IEPF (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Second Amendment Rules, 2017 – 13^th October, 2017

The said Notification can be accessed from the following link:MCA Notification 18_G.S.R. 1267(E) _13.10.2017_IEPF Second amendment rules, 2017