Company Strike Off — Form STK-2

Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013 empowers the Registrar of Companies to strike a company's name off the Register where the Registrar has reasonable cause to believe, among the grounds under Section 248(1), that the company has failed to commence business within one year of incorporation, or that the company is not carrying on any business or operation for a period of two immediately preceding financial years and has not applied for dormant company status under Section 455.

A company may alternatively apply for voluntary removal of its name under Section 248(2), by filing Form STK-2 along with the prescribed fee, after extinguishing all liabilities, obtaining a no-objection certificate from the relevant sectoral regulator where applicable, and securing the requisite shareholder consent. Before an application under Section 248(2), the company must generally have filed all overdue AOC-4 and MGT-7 annual returns up to the end of the financial year in which it ceased to carry on business, or satisfy the specific carve-outs where operations have genuinely ceased. On being satisfied, the Registrar publishes public notice under Section 248(4) and, absent objection within the notice period, strikes the name off — the company stands dissolved under Section 250, subject to the continuing liability of every director, manager and other officer as if the company had not been dissolved, for the purpose of realising amounts due and discharging liabilities.

Company strike off is the removal of a company from the register of companies under Section 248 of the Companies Act 2013, resulting in its dissolution. A company that has ceased to carry on business and has no pending liabilities can apply for voluntary strike off in Form STK-2; the Registrar can also strike off a company on his own motion when it is not carrying on business or is not in operation. The power exists to clear the register of dead companies — it is not a route for escaping live liabilities.

The eligibility conditions are where most applications fail or become risky. The company must have stopped its business, must have no pending statutory filings or dues, must not be a party to litigation, and its directors must be able to make the prescribed declarations. Assets and liabilities are the critical test: a company with outstanding loans, receivables or property does not qualify for a clean strike off, and attempting one with undisclosed liabilities leaves the directors exposed after dissolution, with liability surviving the company's existence under Section 248(7) (VERIFY: the scope of post-dissolution liability under Section 248(7)).

The alternative to strike off — the informal abandonment of a dead company — has its own costs: the additional fee regime of Section 403 for unfiled returns, the company's name blocking the directors' other ventures, and the practical difficulty of ever dealing with the company's assets or claims again.

This service is for companies that have stopped operating and want a lawful exit. We verify eligibility under Section 248 — the no-business, no-liability and no-assets checks — clear the pending filings and dues, prepare the board resolution and Form STK-2, file and manage the process through the notice and objection window to the dissolution notification, and advise where the company instead needs the winding-up or insolvency route.