What secretarial documents can be maintained as e-records?
As per Section 120 read with Rule 27 of The Companies (Management and Administration) Rules, 2014, the following “Records” shall/ may be maintained electronically:
- All Statutory Registers
- Index
- Agreements
- Memorandum and Articles
- Minutes
- Any other document required to be kept by the Company under the Companies Act, 2013 and rules made thereunder
Who is required to maintain e-records?
The following companies are mandatorily required to maintain the records in electronic form:
- Every Listed Company
- Public Company having more than 1000 Shareholders/ Debenture holders/ any other security holder
However, if any Company other than mentioned above, may maintain any of these records in electronic form.
Who is responsible for security of e-records?
The below mentioned persons shall be responsible for the maintenance and security of e-records:
- Managing Director
- Company Secretary
- Any other Director as authorised by Board
- Any other official as authorised by Board
The person who is responsible for the security of e-records shall provide adequate protection against unauthorized access, alterations and tampering of these records.
What are the minimum requirements of e-records?
It is the discretionary power of the Board to decide the manner of maintenance of e-records, but it should fulfill atleast following requirements to be compliant:
- Records shall be in sync with format and requirement of law
- Records must be capable of being readable, easily retrievable and printable format
- Records shall be capable of being dated and digitally signed, when required to be signed
- No editing should be possible, once dates and digital signatures are affixed
- Records shall be capable of being appended and able to record the date of updation
In what manner e-records can be inspected or copies taken?
- Records should be made available for inspection in electronic form through authorized person only. Hence, concerns about its accessibility should be mitigated before its implemented
- Copies of the e-record shall be made available upon payment of fees, not exceeding INR 10/- per page
How BlueLotus can help implement it?
Even before the Companies Act, 2013 came into its effect, we at BlueLotus Strategy had implemented a system of maintaining secretarial records electronically and archiving the same through in-house developed Document Management application, ARMORY. It has integration of all the features required as per the law (as listed below).
The salient features of ARMORY is as below:
- Assured security for e-records archived with defined access levels
- Repository system where archived records can be retrieved through User defined access rights, like viewing, printing, limited retrieval, etc
- Manage printing of records with or without customized watermark
- Optimized Search utility to help retrieve records, as required
- Reports on when the records were accessed and by whom
- Yardstick to comply with requirements of law
Since ARMORY has been developed in-house, it is highly customizable to the requirements of any corporate. It is available on cloud server; therefore no additional cost on hardware needs to be incurred. The application can be accessed online with a login ID, even using any smart device.
For further queries regarding ARMORY, please send your requests to: info@bluelotusstrategy.com
