The Corporate Affairs Ministry (MCA) has extended the last date for filing of form NFRA-2 ——which specifies the format of annual return—- that statutory auditors are required to file with the independent audit regulator NFRA by 60 days.

The MCA has now said that the time limit for filing of form NFRA-2, for the reporting period financial year 2018-19, will be 210 days from the date of deployment of this form on the website of National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA).

It may be recalled that the NFRA-2 form was originally deployed on the NFRA website on December 9 last year. MCA had in December last year given a breather to statutory auditors as it allowed them a 90 day window to file this comprehensive annual return form till March 9.

Subsequently, in March this year, this time limit was extended by two more months—till May 9.

Now, another two months time has come the way of the statutory auditors who can now file the annual return for financial year 2018-19 till July 9, official sources said.

Expert’s take

Commenting on the development, Amarjit Chopra, Past President of the CA Institute, said that this move is reasonable as nobody would like to file wrong information. Since offices are in lockdown mode, they definitely need time to collect the information and file it, he said. “This move is justified. The members are requested to collect the information once the offices open and file it in the extended period of time,” he said.

A partner from a leading audit firm said: “With the lockdown, firms would have required time to fully compile and validate the data to be submitted in the NFRA-2 form. This extension is a welcome move”.

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