Union Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Anurag Thakur, has said that over 3.8 lakh shell companies were struck off under the Companies Act during the last three years.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Thakur said that the government had undertaken a special drive to identify and strike off shell companies.
He, however, noted that the term "shell company" is not defined under the Companies Act, but it normally refers to a company without active business operation or significant assets, which in some cases are used for illegal purposes such as tax evasion, money laundering, obscuring ownership, benami properties, among others.
The Special Task Force set up by the government to look into the issue of shell companies has inter alia recommended the use of certain red-flag indicators as alerts for identification of shell companies.
"Based on non-filing of Financial Statements (FS) consecutively for two years or more, companies were identified and after following the due process of law as provided under Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013 read with the Companies (Removal of Names of Companies from the Register of Companies) Rules, 2016, 3,82,581 companies were struck off during the last three years," the Minister said.
