ICSI Mandates UDIN for all Company Secretaries in Practice
To strengthen the practicing side of company secretaries, ICSI has now initiated for the use of UDIN (Unique Document Identification Number) in attestation and certification of service documents by all company secretaries in practice from 1st Oct 2019 onwards.
The rules governing the use of UDIN has been added vide terms of Clause (I), Part 2 of Second Schedule of Companies Secretaries (Amendment) Act , 2006 where ICSI council has clubbed provisions for mandatory use of applied UDIN by company secretaries for verification and attestation of documents each time imparting their services in practice.
What is UDIN for PCS (Practising Company Secretary)?
Expressed as an initiative of ICAI, UDIN is an automated Unique Document Identification Number generated in the composition of first 2 digits representing the current year (year of attestation ), next 6 digits being the Membership Number of ICAI/ICSI registered person confirming to document authenticity and a randomly generated alphanumeric 10 digit number.
Use of UDIN by company secretaries will do the following :
- Ensure counterfeiting of multiple attestations/certifications
- Enable the shareholders/stakeholders to authenticate documents to be actually verified by company secretaries
- Ensure easy compliance of guidelines on mandatory attestation and maintenance of registers of services rendered by members in practice.
- Enable auto-filling of details of the registered CS members in practice each time verification or attestation is initiated.
Applicability of UDIN
The use of ICSI Udin shall be applicable in all cases except for some e-forms and certified documents. It shall have to be mandatorily applied by a practicing CS for attestations required in cases of :
- Certification of Annual Returns (Section 92(2))
- Issue of Secretarial Audit Report (Section 204 )
- Issue of Secretarial Audit Report to the material the unlisted subsidiaries of listed companies as per SEBI.
- Issue of Annual Secretarial Compliance Report to listed companies.
- Certifications required under SEBI listing and disclosure regulations.
- Conduct of Internal Audit of Operations understated as per bylaws of NSDL or CDSL, Audit of Stockbrokers, sub-brokers under SEBI.
- Certifications required under regulation 76 of SEBI Regulations for reconciliation of Share Capital Audit.
- Certifications required while serving as a Compliance Auditor under any third-party certification or audit scheme.
- Certifications required in case of Indian companies accepting foreign investment or any related matter.
Other than above cases, application of UDIN shall be completely on the voluntary preference of CS in practice, if required in attestation of any other e-Form or document not specified above.
Application of UDIN by Company Secretaries
No special document or approval of any authority is required for the application of UDIN by CS. While it can be applied online following some quick steps :
- Locate to the official UDIN Portal for Company secretaries (http://udin.icsi.edu/Home/Membership Regisrtation)
- Register and log in by providing membership credentials and required particulars i.e. Phone number, Email Id, Income-tax PAN, etc.
- The system then will automatically generate a random alphanumeric 18 digit number to be used as UDIN in attestation/verification of documents.
Things to Know
The following conditions for the use of UDIN by company secretaries in practice are stated as :
- Members with only valid registration of practice shall be eligible to apply for UDIN only.
- No fees shall be charged for registration/generation of UDIN.
- Name, CIN, PAN or respective details of the client/ person receiving services have to be mentioned while generating UDIN.
- Unutilized UDIN can be surrendered or canceled within 7 days of generation.
- For non-compliance of guidelines stated for use of UDIN by PCS, legal actions as specified by Company Secretaries Act shall be taken.
Use of UDIN by PCS will act as a trust enhancer for entities/stakeholders ensuring the genuineness of documents which are authorized by trusted CS professionals.
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