The department has also directed the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and regional directors to trace public limited companies and their directors/managers who have disappeared in the past few years.

Default notices have also been asked to be issued to all companies and their managing directors/whole-time directors/ordinary directors who have failed to file their annual accounts/returns by due dates. Field offices have been asked to initiate action against those companies which fail to respond to the default notices within a period of 15 days.

DCA has been under pressure from various quarters including the Prime Minister's Office to bring errant companies to book.

The department has constituted a cell under the charge of a joint director to monitor follow-up on vanished companies and to coordinate with the field organisations.

The DCA circular has further directed RoCs to prepare a broad list of companies which came out with public issues between April 1993 and March 1998. The broadsheet is required to give details such as the name of the company and address of its registered office along with the names of the managing director/whole-time directors/other directors and managers. Other information to be included in the broadsheet would be names and addresses of other directors, auditors, bankers and date of public issue.

The registrar is also required to include information such as action taken by it in cases of investor complaints, whether the company is available at the known registered office and what kind of action has been taken to trace companies which have vanished.

Copies of the broadsheet are required to be filed on a monthly basis with regional directors and with the department headquarters on quarterly basis.

The DCA circular further states that if the company is not available at the last known address, the RoCs and regional directors, besides initiating prosecution under the Companies Act, should lodge a complaint with police authorities to trace the whereabouts of the company and its managing director and other directors.

Simultaneously the RoC is required to issue a notice in newspapers advising the public to report to the registrar on the whereabouts of the MD/WTDs/other directors of the company.

The RoC is, thereafter, required to report to the department and regional directors on the outcome of the police complaint, public notice and action to be taken.

Additionally, RoCs are required to maintain similar records of companies which came out with public issues post April 1998 and take action wherever necessary.