Office not registered? It may be classified as a shell firm, says panel

The government has already struck off 226,000 companies from the register for not filing statutory returns

If the office of your company is not at the registered address you have given to the Registrar of Companies (RoC), it might soon be categorised as a shell firm.

An expert committee reviewing various provisions in the Companies Act has recommended that those firms which do not maintain a registered office should be struck off the RoC. Earlier, the government had struck off names of only those companies that had not filed returns.

Committee members said this would prompt the government track the directors of such companies. Till now, the government has been cancelling registration only to track “vanishing” firms —