A simple scroll on twitter under the hashtag #V3Error will take you to thousands of complaints that company secretaries have raised in the last three months. Every day, these professionals tweet about issues they are facing on the MCA 21 portal marking the helpdesk, MCA and LTI Mindtree, but according to them, all in vain.

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There are several complaints about technical glitches on the portal, which are leading to grave issues like not being able to fill important forms, delays in uploading of important documents and delay in downloading certificates of charge registrations. Chartered Accountants (CA) complain that many of these delays are also leading to penalties and are impacting the functioning company secretaries.

What is the issue with the MCA 21 Portal?

MCA 21 is an e-Governance initiative of Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), that enables an easy and secure access of the MCA services to corporate entities, professionals and Indian citizens. The portal was designed to fully automate enforcement and compliance of legal requirements under the Companies Act and Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008.

However, at least for now, the process of automation has made it more difficult for company secretaries to do their routine fillings.

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Even though, the version two of the MCA21 portal also had some issues, version three has invited more complaints. Complaints started cropping up on social media in January 2023, when more compliance-related filings were moved to V3. 63 more forms were moved to the new version that affected, among others, the start-ups funded by venture capitalists. Because of tech glitches on the portal, company secretaries faced delays in setting up and closing or converting companies or getting DIN numbers.

Earlier in February, Finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman took note of these complaints and asked for the formation of a special team to address public grievances on a priority basis. As a result, a few helpdesks were set up and a special twitter handle was launched to address the complaints on twitter. However, company secretaries say that the problems are yet to be resolved. In many cases, complaints raised in February remained open for months and were closed without any solution.

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“We have filed a LLP Fillip Form for Incorporation on February 28, 2023, which was marked for re-submission on March 5, 2023 reason being, technical glitches, unable to find the form in Doc Tab by V3 Portal. From that date, we have faced multiple issues. The portal was unable to recognize DPIN/ DIN, applicable AO code For PAN/ TAN etc., showing multiple errors, which were accepted during the original submission. For this, we raised a ticket. Further, we faced an issue of expiry of the reserved name of the LLP. For that, we again raised a ticket. Then a fresh ticket dated 06-04-2023 was raised for a new error i.e., DSC validation error. Although DSC was registered with MCA Portal, it still showed DSC validation errors. The previous tickets dated 5th April for the same issue was closed without any solution", said Yash Dhanuka, Proprietor, Dhanuka Yash & Associates.

Government view on functioning of MCA 21

Data from the MCA website suggests that record number of filings have happened in the last couple of months. Sources in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs agree that there are technology glitches but they believe these are ‘teething issues’, which will be resolved soon. They say that the version three was created to fully digitalise and revolutionise the fillings on MCA 21 portal. 7 lakh new user registrations have been done in the last two months. The data also suggests that over 3 lakh new DSC registrations have happened in the last two months.

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These numbers are important because DSC registrations have been one of the many pain points raised by company secretaries on social media. Sources at MCA say, that many complaints have been coming to them and mostly about the new KYC norms. “Some users just suggest that half of the issues will be resolved if we do away with the KYC norms, but we can’t do that. KYC regulations are mandatory to check frauds,” said a government source.

Many professionals are still flagging concerns. “Yes, filings are still being done on the portal. But if it takes 5 hours for a job that used to get done in half an hour, what is the point. I have started waking up at 3am to upload some forms thinking maybe at night, the portal would be smooth because of lower traffic, but it doesn’t help”, said a company secretary requesting anonymity.

The Indian Institute of Chartered Accountants and Indian Institute of Company Secretaries have been sending representations to the MCA in this regard. These institutions have pushed for extension of deadlines and also demanded waving off penalties in cases where tech glitches have led to delays. However, the extensions can’t go on for long.

Aniket Talati, President, ICAI said that there are too many moving parts on the MCA 21 portal and changes lead to initial problems. Talati said that there have been issues whenever portals like these are upgraded.

“We are regularly meeting with MCA about the issues that profess are facing. For understanding of issues that arose from new ways of filing, we are conducting large webinars to educate business users about V3. We have also set up helplines for specific queries. The bigger queries are being shared with the MCA to highlight the challenges", said Talati.

The ministry is planning to move more forms to the version 3 of the portal in coming months. In the absence of a resolution to the existing issues, there could be more complaints in the future. Government officials say that meetings are being held with the LTI Mindtree teams on a regular basis to resolve the glitches on the portal.

CNBC TV18 reached out to LTIMindtree for a comment on the issue, but the company declined to comment.

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