Aadhaar in MCA services? Steps needed to be taken by professionals

While we read so many news about deadline to link AADHAAR with Bank Account, Insurance Policy, Investment and what not. One service which has not yet started linking AADHAR till date is MCA. However, Ministry of Corporate Affairs in its dashboard announcement made it clear that even MCA is considering AADHAAR integration for various MCA21 services.

'As a preparatory step, all individual stakeholders viz. DIN holders/Directors/Key Managerial Personnel (KMP)/Professionals of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (CS), Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (CA), Institute of Cost Accountants of India (CWA) (whether in employment or in practice) are requested to obtain Aadhaar as early as possible for integrating their details with MCA21 and also ensure that the information in Aadhaar is in harmony with PAN.' said the notice on MCA.

The notice further clarified that 'When implemented, all MCA21 services shall be available based on Aadhaar based authentication ONLY.'

While notice did not clarify the date of AADHAR integration with MCA21 but instead made an ambiguous statement stating that 'date of Aadhaar integration with MCA21 would be announced shortly.'

Further, it is important to note that Companies Amendment Act, 2017 has amended Section 153 of the Companies Act, 2013 (Application for allotment of Director Identification Number) by adding following proviso to the Section:

"Provided that the Central Government may prescribe any identification number which shall be treated as Director Identification Number for the purposes of this Act and in case any individual holds or acquires such identification number, the requirement of this section shall not apply or apply in such manner as may be prescribed."

So there are chances that MCA might replace DIN with AADHAR number in future. However, in the meantime as a professional, we have to ensure that:

1. All the concerned person (Stakeholders) has an active AADHAAR Card.
2. All details of AADHAR is matching with PAN of the respective Individual
3. All details of AADHAR is matching with the respective Institutes database for professionals
4. If there is any mismatch take a step to ensure that details exactly match as per PAN-Institute’s record

While deadline of most of the AADHAAR linking services are extended as per recent Supreme Court order, Government is not just giving up on AADHAAR project and it is expected that soon it will be mandatory or MCA services.

It's better to be prepared and ensure that we are ready to face the inevitable when it is not made mandatory instead of crying and complaining once the deadline for AADHAAR linkage is reaching. While the government is committed to ease of doing business, it is the duty of professional to return the favour when it mattered and ensure smooth transforming the database, if any is planned. Ease of Doing Business cannot be achieved unless all the stakeholders play an active part in it.