The Corporate Affairs Ministry (MCA) has given two more months’ time for statutory auditors to file their form NFRA-2 — which specifies the format of annual return — for FY19 with the National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA), the independent audit regulator.

The MCA has extended the deadline to September 9, against the earlier extended deadline of July 9. Statutory auditors can now file the NFRA-2 form within 270 days from the date of its publication on NFRA website, that is 270 days from December 9.

It may be recalled that the MCA had, in December last year, given a breather for statutory auditors who were earlier required to file the NFRA-2 form with NFRA by November 30.

It had then said that the form NFRA-2 could be filed with NFRA within 90 days from the day on which it was published on the website of the authority.

This meant that auditors had time till March 9 to file the comprehensive annual return for 2018-19. This time limit was later extended to May 9 and July 9 in two subsequent separate MCA orders. Now the time limit has again be extended by two more months.

Experts’ take

Amarjit Chopra, former CA Institute President, said the latest MCA move is in the right direction to help the members overcome difficulties. People were facing problems in uploading the form. It appears they were having back-end problems, Chopra said.

Ashok Haldia, former CA Institute Secretary, said the deadline extension has come to the knowledge of many firms after the deadline was over. Hence, it is likely that most of the firms have filed the details. “The format required clarifications which were not forthcoming may be because of the pandemic. Hence, the firms were requesting for extension. The delay may lead to delayed action on the information at the level of NFRA,” Haldia said.

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