Enhanced financial disclosures require ageing schedules, promoter shareholding, fund flow and crypto holdings disclosures in company accounts.
Amendments to Schedule III (effective 1 April 2021) revise presentation and significantly expand disclosure requirements: replace "Turnover" with "Total Income"; relabel Tangible Assets as Property, Plant and Equipment and add Intangible Assets; revise Statement of Changes in Equity; recognise lease liabilities; require promoter shareholding disclosure; separate current maturities of long term borrowings; mandate ageing schedules for trade receivables and payables and disclosure of unbilled dues; require title deed details for immovable property not held in company name; require disclosures on revaluations by registered valuers, loans to promoters/directors/KMPs, use of borrowed funds and intermediary fund flows, benami property proceedings, struck off company transactions, wilful defaulter status, CSR, undisclosed income, and crypto currency holdings.

Intermediated funds disclosure: companies must represent no undisclosed routed loans and auditors to verify accordingly.
Amendments to rule 11 add that management must represent no undisclosed advances, loans, or investments to intermediaries or receipt of funds from funding parties with arrangements to onlend or secure for ultimate beneficiaries, except as disclosed; auditors must perform reasonable audit procedures and report material misstatements of those representations. Auditors must also confirm dividend compliance with the Companies Act and whether accounting software used maintained an untampered audit trail preserved per record-retention requirements.

Audit trail requirement for accounting software mandates immutable edit logs to strengthen transaction transparency and auditability for companies.
The amendment mandates that companies using accounting software must use systems with an audit trail that records every transaction, creates an edit log with change dates, and cannot be disabled, and expands annual disclosure requirements to include details and year end status of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code applications or proceedings and explanations of differences between one time settlement valuations and valuations used for obtaining bank or financial institution loans.

Central Scrutiny Centre oversight of STP e-forms creates centralized scrutiny with referral to registrars for statutory action.
Establishes a Central Scrutiny Centre (CSC) to perform centralized scrutiny of Straight Through Processes (STP) e-forms, operating under the administrative control of the e governance Cell, and to forward findings where required to the jurisdictional Registrar of Companies for further action under the Companies Act and rules.

Remuneration limits for non-executive and independent directors updated under Schedule V alongside managerial remuneration caps by amendment.
Amendment expands Schedule V to include "or other director" alongside managerial persons, substituting Table (A) to prescribe graduated yearly remuneration ceilings tied to a company's effective capital and inserting an explanation that "or other director" means a non-executive director or an independent director.

Commencement of Companies Amendment provisions activated, bringing specified amendment sections into force by government appointment.
The Central Government, under sub section (2) of section 1 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2020, has appointed a date by official notification on which sections 32 and 40 of the Act shall come into force, thereby bringing those amendment provisions into effect.

Commencement of section 23 clause (i) activates Companies Amendment provision upon Central Government notification appointed.
Under the enabling power of sub section (2) of section 1 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2017, the Central Government, by notification issued through the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, appoints a specified day as the date on which clause (i) of section 23 of the Amendment Act shall come into force, thereby exercising statutory commencement power.

Companies annual return filing: OPCs and Small Companies must use abridged Form MGT-7A; electronic voting definitions tightened.
Every company must file its annual return in Form MGT-7, while One Person Companies and Small Companies shall file an abridged annual return in Form MGT-7A from financial year 2020-2021; a copy of the annual return must be filed with the Registrar with fees as specified. The rules add detailed definitions and requirements for electronic voting, including certified "agency" approval, definitions of "cut-off date," "electronic voting system," "remote e-voting," "cyber security," and characteristics of a "secured system," and substitute Forms MGT-7 and MGT-7A.

Aadhar authentication for GSTIN registration now offered as an optional checkbox in SPICe+ Form INC 35 under incorporation rules.
The Companies (Incorporation) Third Amendment Rules, 2021 add to Form INC-35 AGILE-PRO (part of SPICe+) an explicit optional question: whether the applicant wishes to perform Aadhar authentication for GSTIN registration; the amendment takes effect upon publication in the Official Gazette.

Listed company definition narrowed: privately placed non-convertible securities and certain foreign-only equity listings excluded.
The amendment inserts rule 2A excluding specified classes from being treated as listed companies, effective April 1, 2021: (a) public companies without equity listings domestically but with privately placed listed non-convertible debt securities and/or non-convertible redeemable preference shares under SEBI regulations; (b) private companies listing non-convertible debt securities on a recognized exchange via private placement under SEBI regulations; and (c) public companies whose equity is listed only on a foreign exchange specified under the Act.

Amendment to Companies Act notification updates union territory entries, adding Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to territorial listings.
The Central Government amends notification S.O. 1935(E) by substituting table entries: replacing the entry at serial number 2, column (4) with "Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu," and replacing the entry at serial number 5, column (4), item (2) with two items: "Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir" and "Union territory of Ladakh," thereby updating territorial designations used for corporate regulatory purposes.

Commencement of Sections 52 and 66 - these amendments to the Companies Act come into force on appointed date.
The Central Government, under sub section (2) of section 1 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2020, appointed 11 February 2021 as the date on which Section 52 and Section 66 of the Act shall come into force by Ministry of Corporate Affairs notification.

Offer period for rights issue requires a minimum seven-day acceptance period from the date of the offer.
Rule 12A amends the Companies (Share Capital and Debentures) Rules by prescribing that, for the specified clause governing offers, the time period within which an offer must be kept open for acceptance shall be not less than seven days from the date of the offer, thereby setting a mandatory minimum acceptance window for such offers.

Investment of general reserves limited to specified securities, banks, co-operative societies and public financial institutions under producer company rules.
Producer Companies Rules, 2021 apply to Producer Companies and adopt definitions from the Act and related rules. They provide for change of registered office across States by applying the Companies (Incorporation) Rules procedures and prescribe permissible investment of general reserves in approved securities, deposits and instruments issued by government bodies, co-operative societies, scheduled banks, co-operative banks, specified trust securities, shares or securities of co-operative societies, and assets of public financial institutions.

Scheme of merger: startups may merge with other startups or small companies under amended merger rules.
The amendment permits a scheme of merger or amalgamation to be entered into either between two or more start-up companies or between one or more start-up companies and one or more small companies, and defines start-up company as a private company incorporated under the Companies Act and recognised as such under the specified government notification; the rules take effect on publication in the Official Gazette.

Small company definition updated to set specific paid-up capital and turnover caps; changes effective from April 1, 2021.
The Amendment Rules, 2021 add clause (t) to rule 2(1) of the Companies (Specification of Definitions Details) Rules, 2014, specifying that for sub-clauses (i) and (ii) of clause (85) of section 2 of the Act, the paid-up capital and turnover of a small company shall not exceed rupees two crores and rupees twenty crores respectively; the amendment is effective from 1 April 2021.

Companies (Incorporation) Rules amended: OPC conversion process set, required filings, and residency threshold shortened.
The substituted rule 6 prescribes conversion of a One Person Company into a Private or Public Company (other than a section 8 company) by altering MOA and AOA through a resolution under subsection (3) of section 122, increasing membership and directorship to prescribed minima, maintaining applicable minimum paid up capital, complying with section 18, and filing e Form INC 6 with fees and attachments (altered MOA/AOA, copy of resolution, lists of proposed members/directors with consents, list of creditors, and latest audited financial statements) for Registrar approval and issuance of a conversion certificate.

Company conversion procedure tightened: Regional Director to hold hearings, record consensus and may refuse approval if investigations or prosecutions exist.
Rule 41 is amended to change cross references, omit a clause and renumber sub rules. The substituted sub rule (7) requires the Regional Director to record objections in writing, hold hearings within thirty days, obtain an affidavit recording any consensus, and pass a reasoned order approving or rejecting the conversion within thirty days of the hearing. If no consensus arises, the Regional Director may still approve conversion if satisfied it is not against the company's interests and not to evade the Act; conversion is prohibited where any inquiry, inspection, investigation or prosecution under the Act is pending.

Commencement of Companies Amendment Act provisions takes effect under central government notification, activating specified corporate law sections.
The Central Government, under sub section (2) of section 1 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, appoints a date as the commencement for a specified list of sections and clauses of the Act, thereby bringing those listed provisions into force by notification; the notification functions as the administrative mechanism that activates the statutory provisions without changing their content.

Commencement of Companies Amendment Act provision: specified section to come into force on an appointed date.
Central government, invoking sub section (3) of section 1 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2019, issued a notification appointing a specific day as the date on which the provisions of section 21 of that Act shall come into force, thereby operating as a statutory commencement of that amendment provision.