Authority: National Company Law Tribunal Kolkata Bench (Court-I)
Order Date: 14 July 2026
Case Overview
The Registrar of Companies, Jharkhand filed an appeal (APPEAL/35(KB)2024) under Section 252(1) of the Companies Act, 2013 seeking restoration of New R.B. Coke & Coal Private Limited (CIN: U014212JH2007PTC012840) to the register of companies. The company had been struck off from the register despite having open charges pending for satisfaction. The Registrar acknowledged that the strike-off occurred inadvertently during three separate drives to remove non-functional companies conducted as per Ministry of Corporate Affairs directions. The error resulted from a mechanical process using the MCA-21 portal that generated lists of companies that had failed to file financial statements/annual returns for two consecutive years, without adequate manual verification for open charges. During these three drives, the Jharkhand ROC office had struck off more than 10,000 companies. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, upon analyzing pan-India MCA-21 records, discovered that multiple companies with open charges had been erroneously struck off during the three drives and directed the Registrar via letter dated 10 December 2021 to file applications for restoration before the NCLT. No reply affidavit was filed by the respondent company in these proceedings.
Final Outcome
The NCLT Kolkata Bench allowed the appeal and ordered the restoration of New R.B. Coke & Coal Private Limited's name to the register of the Registrar of Companies, Jharkhand. The Tribunal directed the Registrar to modify the company's status from "struck off" to "active" within 30 days from the date of receipt of the order, effectively restoring the company and its officers and stakeholders to the same status as if the company had never been struck off. The appeal was disposed of with no order as to costs.
Topics: Corporate Restoration, Regulatory Compliance