ICSI Urges MCA to Fix E-Sahaj Portal Registration Glitches Affecting Mandatory Security Clearances:

The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) has sent a representation to the Honourable Secretary of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Government of India, Dr Pallavi Jain Govil, concerning the non-functionality of the registration process on the E-Sahaj Portal.

In the beginning of the representation, the ICSI drew the attention of the concerned authorities towards the provisions of Rule 8 and Rule 10(1) of the Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Rules, 2014, which mandate security clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for allotment of DIN and appointment of a proposed director who is a national of a country sharing a land border with India.

The aforementioned security clearance is furnished with consent and relevant DIN/appointment forms attached to it. The MCA has specially developed a portal named "E-Sahaj Sewa" to process these applications. The same portal is maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

However, numerous representations have been issued highlighting the issue of non-functionality of the portal's registration module. The issue in the portal is making it difficult for the companies and professionals to obtain the mandatory security clearance within the prescribed compliance framework.

On behalf of all those representations, the ICSI has requested the MCA to take all these representations seriously and immediately take steps to resolve these technical issues faced in the portal, especially the registration and redirection links and restoration of the "Contact Us" and "User Help Manual" features on the "E-Sahaj Sewa" portal.

The institute further suggested to the ministry that till the portal is under maintenance and not fully operational, an alternative mechanism can be provided as an interim measure, like a dedicated email channel or a dedicated helpdesk for submission and processing of security clearance requests.

Refer to the official representation for complete information.