Banks and FIs and Digital signature:
Role check for the digital signatures belonging to authorized signatories of Banks/FIs:
The ministry of corporate Affairs has implemented MCA21 e-governance project. The project is aimed at enhancing the service level efficiencies and bringing about certainty and speed in the operations of the MCA.
The operational process of MCA21 has-been adapted to suit the electronic filing with introduction of facilities like e-form, online mode of payments etc. along the philosophy of anywhere at any time access to mca 21 services. In promotion of e-governance practice, the ministry has mandated electronic filing by the companies using Digital signature certificate in conformity with the information Technology Act, 2000.
The user of DSCs has-been mandated for all filings to ensure the security and integrity of documents filed with the registry. To substantiate the requirements, the ministry has introduced role check for the digitalsignatures to ensure that these are correctly applied by authorized signatory.
The Ministry has already introduced role check of DSCs for Directors of the companies from DIN database and the professionals (company secretary/chartered Accountant/Cost Accountant) from the database taken from the respective institute. Following the same process, a mechanism has been formulated to implement a similar role-check to establish the veracity of authorized signatories of Banks and Financial institutions, which is important for charge related services.
The banks and FIs advance credit to the companies and create a charge on the assets so finances. The charges so created are required to be registered with the ROC in order to be a secured creditor. The registration / modification / satisfaction of a charge are filed with ROC through prescribed form which has to bear the digital signature of the companies’ representatives as well as that of the authorized signatory from the Banks/FIs. The role check in respect of the authorized signatory from the Bank/FI is required to ensure that the dsc applied is actually the digital signature of the authorized person.
In view of the critical nature in respect of charge related services, All Banks and financial institutions are requested to follow the Role-check process devised and published through this circular at an early date in the MCA21 system.
