Who may inspect documents filed with the Registrar?
Any person may inspect, by electronic means, a document kept by the Registrar, on payment of the prescribed fee. The right is section 399. It is not limited to a chartered accountant, a company secretary, a cost accountant, or an advocate.
No. Section 399 lets any person inspect. Those professions are who usually write the report.
Who has the right to inspect?
The section gives the inspection to any person. A professional in one of those four callings is who a bank usually asks to read the record and write a report. The profession does not create the right, and the right does not by itself produce the report. The fee is the one prescribed for inspection. This page does not set the amount.
What is the report a bank asks for?
The report is the professional’s account of the company’s filings: identity, capital, directors, members, and charges. The Act does not prescribe its layout. What it usually records, and what a charge filing shows, is on the search-report page. The annual return those filings include is Form MGT-7.
What is not on the register?
A bank’s sanction letter, an interest rate, and a repayment schedule are the lender’s documents. They are not assumed to be on the portal because a charge form was filed. The company’s own register of members is kept at the company. Inspecting the Registrar’s copies is not the same as inspecting that register at the registered office.
Frequently asked questions
Four questions cover who may look, a charge, the other guide, and the fee.
Is inspection limited to four professions?
No. Section 399 lets any person inspect. Those professions are who usually write the report. They are not the only people who may look.
Does inspection create a charge?
No. Inspection reads filings that are already there. A charge is created by the company’s instrument and registered under section 77.
Is this the same page as the search-report guide?
No. That guide lists what the report records. This page is about who may inspect the documents the report is drawn from.
Is the fee set on this page?
No. Inspection is on payment of the fee the rules prescribe. The amount is not quoted here.
Sources
Inspection of documents kept by the Registrar is section 399 of the Companies Act, 2013. What a search report records is a separate guide.