The Kerala High Court directed to accept Form 3 and Form 4 within 10 days without additional fee in a matter relating to technical glitches in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) Portal.
In the writ petition before the Kerala High Court the petitioner, Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) submitted that the petitioner LLP had added 83 additional partners as evident and had tried to file forms 3 and 4 as mandated in Limited Liability Partnership Rules,2009 but due to the glitches in the website of Ministry of Corporate Affairs petitioner was not able to upload forms 3 and 4.
Hence the petitioner was not able to file its annual returns in form 11 for the financial year 2021-22 and 2022-23 even though petitioner had raised several complaints before the respondents through the website and e-mail. Since no action was taken by the respondents the petitioner was constrained to approach the High Court by filing the writ petition.
When the above matter came up for admission the Central Government Counsel submitted that the petitioner can approach the 3rd respondent to redress the grievance and if that be the case, the petitioner shall appear before the 3rd respondent with all the necessary documents on 26/05/2023 and the 3rd respondent will do the needful to redress the grievance of the petitioner.
In the interim order dated 5th May, it was noted that, the counsel for both sides submits that the petitioner will now be in a position to download the form and also upload the same on payment of an amount of Rs. 22,500/-.
Read More: Chartered Accountant approaches Kerala HC citing Technical Glitches on MCA Portal
On the hearing scheduled on 2nd June, 2023 the counsel for the petitioner submitted that his client was not liable to pay the said amount as it is not on account of his fault the delay has occurred. The Bench passed an interim order permitting the petitioner, after making the payment of Rs. 22,500 provisionally subject to the result of the present writ petition.
Read More: Plea in Kerala HC against MCA Portal Glitches
The technical team also tried to file form 3 and 4 of the petitioner LLP but due to the glitches in the website of MCA they were also not able to save form 4 of the petitioner LLP.
On 03/06/2023, the MCA had amended form 3 and enabled Excel functionality for filling partner’s and designated partner’s details instead of manually filling details of all partners. It is submitted that the petitioner was not able to upload form 3 (even in the new form) or form 4. The petitioner had raised the complaints through e-mail and the website of MCA and also given the screen shot of the errors shown to the technical team through WhatsApp as directed by them.
In the interim order on 21/06/2023, a Single Bench of the Kerala High Court of Justice PV Kunhikrishnan ordered the respondents to accept Form 3 and Form 4 within 10 days without insisting the additional fee of Rs.37,500/-.
Ebin Mathew, P J Mathew, Akhila Shoji appeared at the Kerala High Court on behalf of the petitioner – Safa Jewels Areacode LLP.
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