Section 35A: Details of Beneficial Owners

1) When any person invests capital by way of shares or in any other manner and establishes, registers or licenses any company, co-operative society, a private firm, partnership firm or any other kind of legal person, if he invests fifteen percent or more of the shares or capital in such company, co-operative society, private firm, partnership firm directly or indirectly or in the name or through the name of any other person, singly, jointly or collectively or in any other way as its actual owner, then the details of such actual owner shall be submitted to the legal person establishing, registering or licensing body.

2) Until the submission of the particulars pursuant to sub-section (1), the concerned body shall not take action to register, register or grant a licence to such legal person.

3) A company, co-operative society, private firm, partnership firm or a legal person established by way of investment in any form of shares or in any other manner, registered or licensed under sub-section (1) of the Act, shall not be entitled to issue shares or other financial instruments relating thereto.

However, suppose the foreign legal person issues the holder or other financial instruments related to it according to the law of his country. In that case, the information will have to be given to the relevant registering body. If such a legal person has a regulatory body, then such information will also have to be given to that body.

4) A person who does not give details pursuant to this section or does not provide false information about the actual wealth or gives false information about the person whose capital has been seized by the regulatory body or the registering body if there is no such body, the actual wealth of the person shall be fined from ten lakh rupees to fifty lakh rupees and the information of the same shall be given to the Financial Information Unit and the concerned body investigating or enforcing the law.

5) The particulars pursuant to sub-sections (1) and (2) shall be kept by the concerned company, co-operative society, private firm, partnership firm, or legal person to be established by way of investment by way of shares or in any other manner, for five years from the date of expiry of the status of a person as a real rich person, to be updated regularly and made available to the Government or an indicative institution on demand and as may be prescribed in the case of others.

6) The registering body and the regulatory body shall keep records of the actual wealth of such legal person for at least five years from the date of dismissal of such legal person.

7) A company, co-operative society, private firm, partnership firm or a legal person established by investing capital in any form of share investment or in any other way existing at the time of commencement of this section shall, within one year from the date of commencement of this section, submit a statement of the actual wealth of such legal person to the registering body or licensing body.