Centre struck-off nearly 4 lakh shell companies in last three years, says Anurag Thakur

Over 3.82 lakh shell companies have been struck off by the Centre during the past three years in a special identification drive which checked for non-filing of financial statements (FS) by firms for two or more years consecutively.

“382,581 companies were struck off during the last three years,” Anurag Singh Thakur, the Union Minister of State (MoS) for Finance and Corporate Affairs informed in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on September 20.

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After being identified, the companies were struck off as per process provided under Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013 and Companies (Removal of names of companies from the Register of Companies) Rules, 2016, a statement from the Finance Ministry said.

While not defined under the Companies Act, “shell companies” usually refer to a company without active business operation or significant assets, which in some cases are used for an illegal purpose such as tax evasion, money laundering, obscuring ownership, or Benami properties.