Committee constitution directive: ministry nominee designated, member's name corrected, convenor appointed for regulatory reform of business environment.
The circular constitutes a committee to reform the regulatory environment for doing business, names the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' Special Secretary/Additional Secretary as the Ministry's nominee, corrects a member's name to Shri Madhu Kannan, Head Business Development, Tata Sons Limited, and appoints the Director General & CEO of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs as the committee's convenor to coordinate its activities.

Regulatory reform committee to draft a time bound roadmap improving the business environment through stakeholder consultations and statutory recommendations.
A Committee has been constituted to study and reform the regulatory environment for doing business and to prepare a time bound roadmap, with a six month reporting timeframe. Membership includes a private sector chairman, senior industry figures, regulator representatives and joint secretary level ministry nominees; IICA will provide secretarial and logistic support. The Chairman may set procedure and venue. The Committee may elicit policy opinions, hold broad stakeholder consultations, issue questionnaires and invite written public comments to propose statutory and policy changes aimed at improving the business climate.

Accounting Standard exemption: companies applying clause 46A exempt from specified AS 11 and AS 16 provisions in corporate reporting
Where a company elects to apply clause 46A of Accounting Standard 11 on the effects of changes in foreign exchange rates, paragraph 6 of Accounting Standard 11 and paragraph 4(e) of Accounting Standard 16 shall not apply to that company, as a clarification issued to address implementation difficulties and guide stakeholders on applicability of these accounting provisions.

Service tax on non-whole time directors' commission exempted from triggering central approval for remuneration limits in 2012-13.
Service tax on commission or sitting fees payable to Non-Whole Time Directors, when borne by the company, is treated as part of the directors' remuneration and may cause aggregated remuneration to exceed the Companies Act limits; an administrative clarification states that increases solely attributable to payment of such service tax by the company shall not require prior Central Government approval under the Act's remuneration limit provisions for the relevant financial year.

Company Law Settlement Scheme grants immunity from prosecution and allows belated filings with a standardised additional fee.
A special Company Law Settlement Scheme for Jammu & Kashmir permits defaulting companies to file belated annual returns and balance sheets due up to 30.06.2012 by paying statutory filing fees plus an additional fee of twenty five percent of the standardised additional fee; applicants must withdraw any appeals against prosecution, file for immunity electronically after the Scheme's closure within six months, and receive an immunity certificate from the Registrar, which will result in withdrawal of related prosecutions. The Scheme excludes certain companies and specified filings and contemplates action against non participants after its close.

Form 23B filing: fees will apply from 12 August 2012; form requires auditor and company details and digital signature.
The Circular mandates imposition of fees on certain MCA 21 e forms where none were prescribed, deferring fee application on Form 23B (auditor's intimation) until 12 August 2012; Form 23B requires mandatory auditor and company identifiers, appointment dates, acceptance status, attachments and digital signature, and will be filed electronically via MCA 21.

Financial statement filing relief permits non XBRL submission of revised Schedule VI accounts without additional fee within an extended period.
Companies required to file Forms 23AC and 23ACA under the revised schedule VI may submit those e forms in non XBRL format without additional fee or penalty for a limited extended filing period; the revised e form formats are under finalisation and will be notified on the MCA website. Filings must still include required authenticated balance sheet and profit and loss attachments, statements of subsidiaries, auditor particulars and qualifications, director comments, and verification by an authorised signatory.

Filing requirement for unpaid and unclaimed amounts: single Form 5 INV must be filed with investor details uploaded accordingly.
Companies must file a single Form 5 INV each year to report unpaid and unclaimed amounts as on the date of the Annual General Meeting, uploading investor details in the prescribed excel template. Where multiple Form 5 INV filings were made for the same year, companies are directed to re-file a single consolidated Form 5 INV with investor details; companies that have not yet filed are permitted to file the single Form 5 INV with the excel investor schedule within the prescribed compliance window.

Fees on e form filings: fee applicability for the statutory auditor information return deferred until early August, with implementation guidance.
Imposition of fees on electronic forms under the MCA 21 system is required where no fee was previously prescribed for filings with the Registrar of Companies, Regional Directors, or MCA(HQ). Administrative responsibility rests on ROCs, RDs and MCA(HQ) to implement the new fee regime. The fee applicable to the statutory auditor information return has been deferred until the beginning of August 2012 to permit a short transition period for filers and officials to update processes.

XBRL filing mandate for cost audit and compliance reports allows a penalty-free transition period for affected filings.
Mandate to file Cost Audit Reports and Compliance Reports in XBRL format applies to the 2011-12 year and any overdue reports; required taxonomy, business rules, validation tools and Product Group classification will be provided by the Ministry; a limited penalty-free transition period to permit XBRL filing has been authorised and the enabling date will be notified by the Ministry.

Unpaid and unclaimed amounts reporting: companies must file Form 5 INV annually, updated to the AGM, within the prescribed filing period.
Companies must annually report unpaid and unclaimed amounts by filing Form 5 INV, with the cut off being the date of the Annual General Meeting; information for a financial year must be updated to the AGM date and filed electronically within the prescribed post AGM filing period. Each company must submit one Form 5 INV per year disclosing unpaid/unclaimed amounts as on the AGM date, and limited remedial windows are provided for transitional filings and for supplying correct investor excel templates after initial filing.

XBRL filing mandate requires select companies to submit financial statements electronically; fee waiver and exemptions apply.
Specified companies must file Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss Account in XBRL for financial years commencing on or after 1 April 2011, including listed companies and their Indian subsidiaries, firms meeting paid up capital and turnover thresholds, and those already required to file FY 2010-11 in XBRL; banking, insurance, power companies and NBFCs are exempt. The Ministry has posted the Schedule VI taxonomy on its website, will issue business rules and validation tools, will notify the filing enablement date, and allows an additional fee waiver for mandated companies until 15 November 2012 or within 30 days of their AGM.

Extension of filing deadline for LLP annual returns: revised longer filing period applies for the specified financial year.
Extension of the time for filing the annual return (Form 11) by LLPs: the 60 day filing period is read as 122 days for Form 11 in respect of the financial year ending 31 3 2012, extending the filing deadline to 31st July, 2012; the circular is effective from 30 6 2012.

XBRL filing of cost audit and compliance reports permitted after 31 July 2012; Institute asked to circulate guidance.
Filing of Cost Audit Report (Form I) and Compliance Report (Form A) with the Central Government may be made in XBRL format, permitted after 31 July 2012 as a continuation of General Circular No. 8/2012, and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India is requested to circulate this guidance to concerned members.

E form filing fees: prescribed charges now apply to specified corporate e forms filed under MCA 21, changing previous fee treatment.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs directs that specified electronic forms filed through MCA-21 that previously had no fee will now attract charges: some forms are chargeable under Schedule X to the Act, while others attract fees under the Companies (Fee on Application) Rules, 1999. The listed forms include Investor Education Fund statements, statutory auditor notifications, auditor appointment applications, receiver's receipts and payments abstracts, miscellaneous court-related forms, and certain applications to ROC, RD or MCA(HQ). An effective date for implementation is provided.

Constitution of benches for company law matters establishes panel assignments and transitional case allocations across regional benches.
The Company Law Board orders the constitution of Principal, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai benches with named Chairman and judicial or technical members, allocating jurisdictional categories of matters to each bench and designating specific members for certain subject-matter areas. It provides transitional arrangements for matters pending before the Principal and Additional Principal Benches as of 31 March 2008, directs transferred members who have reserved orders to pronounce them at their new postings after notice, and states an effective commencement date. The order is issued under statutory powers and supersedes earlier orders.

Extension of time for LLP annual return filing to avoid additional fees following system closure, applied to affected financial year.
The Registrar LLP functions were decentralised and the LLP filing system was closed from 31-5-2012 to 10-6-2012; accordingly the 60-day statutory filing period for Form 11 is extended by 30 days for the financial year ending 31-3-2012, so the 60-day limit is read as 90 days, effective from 31-5-2012, to prevent additional fees caused by the closure.

Cost audit applicability clarified: threshold-based audit obligation applies from specified dates for covered industries under cost accounting rules.
Clarifies that circulars relating to Cost Accounting Records Rules (2011) and industry-specific Cost Audit Orders remain applicable; companies meeting specified threshold limits must have cost accounting records audited by a qualified cost auditor for financial years commencing on or after applicable effective dates. Supersession of earlier industry rules by 2011 rules is noted, with Cost Audit Order No. 52/26/CAB-2010 applying from financial year 2011-12 for erstwhile-covered products and from financial year 2012-13 for products first covered by revised 2011 rules. Multi-product companies whose activities fall under Companies (Cost Accounting Records) Rules, 2011 but not under cost audit orders must file the prescribed compliance report.

Cost accounting records must be maintained and compliance reports filed by construction and real estate companies meeting statutory thresholds.
Companies in the construction and development (real estate) sector that meet the threshold in Rule 3 of the Companies (Cost Accounting Records) Rules, 2011 must maintain cost accounting records and file a compliance report with the Central Government. The Rules require conformity with Generally Accepted Cost Accounting Principles and Cost Accounting Standards; scope includes developers, infrastructure projects, BOT/BOOT and EPC contracts and projects abroad. Exemptions retained for contractors paid only conversion charges, non-corporate JVs, unlisted companies below thresholds and bodies under special Acts; no cost audit presently applies.

Cost audit exemption for export zone and fully export oriented units, conditioned on records, DTA limits and regulatory data requests.
Exemption from mandatory cost audit is extended to units located in Special Economic Zones, Export Processing Zones, Free Trade Zones and to fully export oriented units, but only for those specific units and not for other units of the same company. Exempted units must still maintain cost accounting records and file compliance reports. Exemption is subject to regulatory requests for industry cost data, limits on domestic tariff area sales, and loss of zone or export oriented status, each of which triggers application of mandatory cost audit from the year of breach or change.