MCA Refund Process – How to Guide with Forms

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has a refund process for multiple payment, incorrect payment and excess payment of fees. In this article, we look at the process for submitting a MCA refund request and obtaining refund from MCA.

MCA Refund

The MCA portal is used by a variety of stakeholders like businesses, professionals and financial institutions for filing a variety of forms from company incorporation to annual return filing or downloading of MCA data. While filing various forms or taking services through the MCA website, the MCA system generates a Service Request Number (SRN) and indicates the fee to be paid for the service. Payment can be made against a SRN by way of challan payment (remittance at Bank counter), NEFT transfer, credit card or internet banking. In instances wherein payment is made wrongly, then the MCA refund process can be initiated for a refund of the fee.

When MCA Refund is Applicable?

The following are instances when MCA refund process can be initiated:

Multiple Payments

Multiple payments are when the service seeker does multiple filings of eForm 1 or eForm 5 and makes payment more than once for the same service due to reasons like:

• Technical problem occurs at payment gateway and no response is received by the MCA system. In such scenarios, the payee’s account maybe debited while the MCA system is not updated.
• Due to low internet speed or network congestion, there maybe a session time out and the amount is debited from the payees account. However, the receipt is not provided and the user makes multiple payments on the same SRN.

In any of the above cases, the MCA user is not aware of the fee paid and makes multiple payment. MCA provides refund for such multiple payments made by the MCA user.

Incorrect Payment

Incorrect payments are when the service seeker has made payment through an incorrect option under pay miscellaneous fee facility. Some of the instances wherein refund can be requested for incorrect payments include:

1. Payment of stamp duty fee into account identified for MCA filing fee;
2. Payment of MCA filing fee into account identified for stamp duty fee;
3. Payment after expiry of SRN due date;
4. Single consolidated payment for multiple SRN;
5. Excess payment than the amount mentioned in MCA;
6. Less payment than the amount mentioned in MCA;
7. Payment made without any SRN;

Excess Payment

Excess payment instances are when an excess fee payment is made by the user due to incorrect data entered by the user or incorrect processing of fee by the MCA system. Excess fee also includes additional fee paid due to delay in filing on account of technical problems of the MCA system.

MCA Refund Application Form

MCA refund process can be initiated by filing the MCA Refund Form. Refund form can be filed only if payment status of the transaction for which refund is sought is ‘PAID’. There is no fee for filing the MCA refund form. However, the refund form must be filed within 1095 days of making payment.

MCA does not process refund for claiming refund of any stamp duty paid electronically through MCA21 system. For refund of stamp duty, request must be made to the concerned state/ union territory, in respect of which stamp duty has been paid.