Companies Act, 1956
Sec 560 - Power of Registrar to strike defunct company off
register.
(1) Where the Registrar has reasonable cause
to believe that a company is not carrying on business or in operation, he shall
send to the company by post a letter inquiring whether the company is carrying
on business or in operation.
(2) If the Registrar does not within one month
of sending the letter receive any answer thereto, he shall, within fourteen
days after the expiry of the month, send to the company by post a registered
letter referring to the first letter, and stating that no answer thereto has
been received and that, if an answer is not received to the second letter
within one month from the date thereof, a notice will be published in the Official
Gazette with a view to striking the name of the company off the register.
(3) If the Registrar either receives an answer
from the company to the effect that it is not carrying on business or in
operation, or does not within one month after sending the second letter receive
any answer, he may publish in the Official Gazette, and send to the company by
registered post, a notice that, at the expiration of three months from the date
of that notice, the name of the company mentioned therein will, unless cause is
shown to the contrary, be struck off the register and the company will be
dissolved.
(4) If, in any case where a company is being
wound up, the Registrar has reasonable cause to believe either that no
liquidator is acting, or that the affairs of the company have been completely
wound up, and any returns required to be made by the liquidator have not been
made for a period of six consecutive months, the Registrar shall publish in the
Official Gazette and send to the company or the liquidator, if any, a like
notice as is provided in sub-section (3).
(5) At the expiry of the time mentioned in the
notice referred to in sub-section (3) or (4), the Registrar may, unless cause
to the contrary is previously shown by the company, strike its name off the
register, and shall publish notice thereof in the Official Gazette; and on the
publication in the Official Gazette of this notice, the company shall stand
dissolved :
Provided that
(a) the liability, if any, of every director
manager or other officer who was exercising any power or management, and of
every member of the company, shall continue and may be enforced as if the
company had not been dissolved ; and
(b) nothing in this subsection shall affect
the power of the Court to wind up a company the name of which has been struck
off the register.
(6) If a company, or any member or creditor
thereof, feels aggrieved by the company having been struck off the register,
the Court, on an application made by the company, member or creditor before the
expiry of twenty years from the publication in the Official Gazette of the
notice aforesaid, may, if satisfied that the company was, at the time of the
striking off, carrying on business or in operation or otherwise that it is just
that the company be restored to the register, order the name of the company to
be restored to the register ; and the Court may, by the order, give such
directions and make such provisions as seem just for placing the company and
all other persons in the same position as nearly as may be as if the name of
the company had not been struck off.
(7) Upon a certified copy of the order under
subsection (6) being delivered to the Registrar for registration, the company
shall be deemed to have continued in existence as if its name had not been
struck off.
(8) A letter or notice to be sent under this
section to a company may be addressed to the company at its registered office,
or if no office has been registered, to the care of some director, manager or
other officer of the company, or if there is no director, manager or officer of
the company whose name and address are known to the Registrar, may be sent to
each of the persons who subscribed the memorandum, addressed to him at the
address mentioned in the memorandum.
(9) A notice to be sent under this section to
a liquidator may be addressed to the liquidator at his last known place of
business.