The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has requested all Banks and Financial Institutions to follow the role-check process devised and published for the digital signatures (DSCs) belonging to authorized signatories of Banks/FIsrecently in its e-Governance project MCA21. In a circular issued recently by the ministry it has been thrust upon that such precaution is very essential as these institutions has to carry out charge related services. 

It may be noted that the e-Governance project MCA21 is aimed at enhancing the service level efficiencies and bringing about certainty and speed in the operations of the Ministry, particularly with regard to the delivery of all the registry related services rendered by Registrar of Companies as defined under the Companies Act, 1956. 

The operational process of MCA21 has been adapted to suit the electronic filing with the introduction of facilities like e-form, online mode of payments etc along the philosophy of “anywhere at any time” access to MCA21 services. In promotion of e- Governance, the Ministry has mandated electronic filing by the companies using Digital Signature Certificates (DSCs) in conformity with the Information Technology Act, 2000. 

The use of DSCs has been mandated for all filings to ensure the security and integrity of documents filed with the Registry. To substantiate the requirements, the ministry has introduced the Role-check for the Digital Signatures to ensure that these are correctly applied by the authorized signatory. 

The Ministry has already introduced role-check of DSCs for Directors of companies from the Director Identification Number (DIN) database and the Professionals (Company Secretary/Chartered Accountant/Cost Accountant) from the database taken from the respective institutes. Following the same process a mechanism has been formulated to implement similar role- check to establish the veracity of authorized signatories of Banks and Financial Institutions, which is important for charge related services. 

The Banks and FIs advance credit to the companies and create a charge on the assets so financed. The charges so created are required to be registered with the ROC in order to be a secured creditor. The registration/modification/satisfaction of a charge are filed with the Registrar through the prescribed form which has to bear the Digital Signatures of the company representative as well as the Authorized Signatory from the Bank/FI. The role-check in respect of the Authorized Signatory from the Bank/FI is required to ensure that the DSC applied is actually the Digital Signature of the authorized person.