Revised IEPF Rules and Regulations:

IEPF Claim- Uses of IEPF Form 5, Form 2 and Form 4 IEPF as most of you must know stands for the Investor Education and Protection Fund which was introduced by the Government of India in September 2016, under the Companies Act, 2013. It is governed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and aims towards educating the investors on various investment policies to make sure they are not breaching any clause(s). Apart from educating, it also assists investors in claiming their unclaimed dividends, deposits, debentures, etc via the IEPF Form 5 which is easily available on the IEPF portal.

Back in August and September 2019, the MCA introduced new reforms and made amendments to the existing rules which made the process of claiming investments more transparent. Let’s check out how the new IEPF gov. reforms have bisected the process of claiming under various forms like Form 5, Form 2 and Form 4, thereby making the process more secure:

Purpose of Form-5, Form 4 and Form 2: Form 5: The purpose of IEPF Form 5 is that it serves like an application to the IEPF Authority for claiming dividends, deposits and other investments out of the IEPF Fund. Moreover, with the introduction of new reforms under Rule 7(2), Form 5 can now be submitted online to the Nodal Officer via the IEPF Gov portal.

Form 4: Under the new rule 6(5), companies now need to send a statement to the IEPF Authority after the transfer of any shares which asks for filing the IEPF-4 within 30 days of the action taken under rule 6(3)(c) of the Act. When filing the IEPF Form-4, all the details of the transfer, as well as a copy of the public notice, is mandatory. This reform has now limited the time period to 30 days.

Also the Rule 6(8) has made it mandatory to fill the IEPF Form 4 as a statement while transferring any or all benefits of shares transferred to the IEPF which further includes split, fraction shares, etc, within 30 days.

Form 2: The new rules namely 5(8) and 7(2B) have made Form 2 a compulsion to be filed for the following purposes: 1. As a statement (not application) of unclaimed and unpaid amounts 2. When appointing a Nodal Officer 3. When appointing a Deputy Nodal Officer 4. Updation of details of Nodal Officer 5. To inform updation/cessation of details of Deputy Nodal Officer To file details, Form IEPF-2 is required to be filed by the company. The Form contains all the details of investors as well as the details of and all their unclaimed and unpaid amounts. The form needs to be filed within 90 days of the Annual General Meeting(AGM).

Conclusion: Even since its establishment, the IEPF has served its purpose of making investors aware of their rights and also educating them via the IEPF portal. The new reforms have only made it better by making the process more secure and eliminating any fake claims to be considered by the authority. The IEPF Form 5, Form 4 and Form 2 have now been reformed and as a responsible citizen, every investor should be well aware of the changes as it will be beneficial to them. Above were some of the major changes that were introduced last year.

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