Chartered Accountant · ICAI M.No. 153926 · FRN 136869W
What happens
Mounting penalties, frozen ability to file, and eventual strike-off.
Strike-off and revival
Once struck off, revival requires an NCLT application — far costlier than filing on time.
The revival route if it has gone too far
If default has already led to strike-off, the company isn’t simply gone — but getting it back is involved. Revival needs an application to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), usually within three years of the strike-off, showing the company was carrying on business or that restoration is otherwise just. The Tribunal, if satisfied, orders restoration subject to filing all the overdue returns and paying the accumulated penalties and costs. During the struck-off period the company can’t operate its bank accounts, sign contracts or be a party to transactions, and its directors carry the disqualification fallout. Because the cost and delay of an NCLT revival far exceed years of routine filing fees, the sensible course whenever a company falls behind is to bring the filings up to date quickly, or — if it genuinely won’t trade — close it cleanly through the voluntary strike-off route rather than letting it be struck off involuntarily with penalties attached. Acting in the first year or two of default is far easier than after a strike-off.