The MCA21 portal of the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), on which company secretaries (CS) and chartered accountants (CAs) from across the country had to file compliance reports, has remained in 'error' mode since 30 December 2020, a day before the deadline to submit mandatory reports. As reported by Moneylife, the plea of lakhs of CSs, CAs, corporates and professionals requesting extension of the deadline till 31 March 2021 has not evoked any response from finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman or the Union government. 

 

RT even after 18 days of due dates, MCA portal is still not working.

We need due dates to be extended later, first make portal in working condition. @nsitharaman

— CA Chirag Chauhan (@CAChirag) January 18, 2021

 

Simple pay later challan, we are trying to pay but MCA is seeking Apologies, what option we have #Extend_CFFS #extend_roc_due_dates pic.twitter.com/nk9QWoyYcC

— CA NAVEEN KUMAR (@CANAVEENKUMAR25) January 18, 2021

 

Shamelessness. Utter Shamelessness is too much to bear.

I chose neither 'Pay Now' nor 'Pay Later' yet Transaction Status is valid. And now I should file again and pay fortune for that. MCA's audacity knows no leaps and bounds. #Extend_CFSS #Extend_LLPSS #ExtendDueDate pic.twitter.com/hHRajngyGh

— Rahul Singh (@CSRahul_Singh) January 18, 2021

 

Please suspend late fee u/s 271F and 271B and also remove late fees of GST and MCA and give relief to the taxpayers who are suffering from COVID and Post Covid Complicasies ?? Please @nsitharaman @PMOIndia @Anurag_Office @IncomeTaxIndia

— Lavanya Vigneshwaran (@LavanyaVignesh2) January 18, 2021

 

As reported by Moneylife, fighting hard to keep up with the COVID-19 pandemic situation and deadlines for compliance in the face of the problematic e-filing portal of the MCA, associations of company secretaries, corporates, including the micro-, small- and medium-enterprises (MSMEs) and the limited liability partnerships (LLPs), and individual professionals such as CSs and lawyers, have urged the finance minister to extend the deadline by three months till 31 March 2021 and relieve them of the endless pains caused by MCA portal. Also, for the first time, several practising CSs came out openly on Twitter and made #Extend_CFSS a trending hashtag for quite some time to grab the attention of the finance ministry.

 

While businesses have been penalised with draconian penalties, the pleas from professionals as well as a storm on social media has been steadfastly ignored by the government. 

 

List of errors/problems which all professionals are facing on #MCA since last few months now. @LTI_Global can you just address the same? if required, take website offline for a week or so but please address the issues of #MCA Website.#Extend_CFSS #Extend_LLPSS pic.twitter.com/t5dG0ndmQQ

— CS Jigar Shah ? (@FCSJigarShah) January 18, 2021

 

The MCA had introduced companies’ fresh settlement scheme (CFSS) and LLP settlement scheme vide general circular no.12/2020 and general circular no.13/2020 with an opportunity to complete and regularise the pending compliance for companies and LLPs without any additional fees and penalties, and also providing immunities from prosecution. These schemes were extended till 31 December 2020. But there is no further extension given by the MCA.

 

@nsitharamanoffc @nsitharaman @PMOIndia @HMOIndia @FinMinIndia @ianuragthakur
Extension of CFSS is well deserved considering poor MCA functionality. Is Govt. even interested in supporting professionals or just making false claims in the name of Ease of Doing Business#extendcfss

— purvee roy (@purveeroy) January 18, 2021

 

Sir, Why should small enterprises and professionals bear due to failure of MCA website on due date. Respected Modi ji kindly look into the matter and allow extension of CFSS as compensation of MCA website failure.

— CA Karthik Nag (@Karthik48735332) January 18, 2021

 

Many such example due to non working of MCA portal... Forms could not be uploaded... If MCA portal would have work properly... No such demand for extension would have been arises. But as usual our @FinMinIndia is far away from ground reality. Now they are eyeing late fees.

— CA AKASH PINCHA (@AKASHPINCHA) January 18, 2021

 

The ministry, however, in a circular issued on 15 January 2021, clarified that no extension is granted for filing compliance report. The ministry circular brings out a new modified scheme for companies, which are revived by NCLT from 1st December to 31 December 2020. This ended all predictions for the government granting extension for old CFSS and LLP settlement scheme.

 

Earlier, a memorandum submitted by company secretaries to the registrar of companies (RoC) pointed out, "Most professionals are struggling with the e-filing website of MCA due to the time taken for uploading, irrelevant errors, non-generation of service request number (SRN), and multiple payments. The finance ministry may please investigate the whole process of filing and the time wasted of professionals. Quality time is wasted behind unproductive work."

 

Coming back to the MCA e-filing portal, Moneylife have also been pointing out the issues being faced by professionals ever since the management of this portal changed hands some seven years ago. Company secretaries and chartered accountants whose professional services require a functioning MCA professional were desperately appealing for help in 2013 and continues to do so even in 2021. (Read: Why can’t Infosys get MCA, the e-filing system working?)