Register DSC on MCA

Any person who is a Director of a Company, a Designated Partner of an LLP, or a Professional like a Chartered Accountant or Company Secretary must register DSC on the MCA portal to file forms. If a DSC is not registered on the MCA portal, the person would not be able to file any forms. As a Director's or Partner's DSC is required for filing annual returns and various other documents, it's essential to register the DSC on the MCA portal after incorporation. In this article, we look in detail at the procedure to register DSC on MCA Portal.

Digital Signature Certificate (DSC)

Digital Signature Certificate or DSC is an encrypted electronic signature of a person. Digital signatures are stored in encrypted USB drivers and can be accessed only with a password. Class 2 DSC is required for filing various types of returns with the Government like annual return, income tax return, GST return, and completing other statutory filings.

Importance of Registering DSC on the MCA Portal

Any Director Designated Partner or Professional intending to file a form on the MCA portal must first register the DSC. Registration of DSC on the MCA Portal allows MCA to know the identity of the person using a Digital Signature Certificate and prevent unauthorized use. Note: If DSC is not registered on the MCA portal, any eForm digitally signed by you for any Company being a director, manager, secretary, or practicing professional, will not be accepted on the MCA portal once Role Check is implemented, as the system will not recognize role associated with the digital signatures affixed on the form.

Validity of Digital Signatures

Unlike PAN or Director Identification Number (DIN), DSCs are not valid for life. DSCs are usually valid for one or two years; in the end, they must renew their validity. Once a DSC is renewed, one must repeat the process of registering DSC on the MCA portal to register the new DSC.

Who should register the DSC on the MCA portal?

As mentioned above, Directors, managers, and Secretary of the Company and practicing professionals, i.e., CA, CS & CWA, should register their DSC on the MCA portal if they have not registered their DSC as a business user earlier. Note: All the directors, managers, and secretaries of the Company are not required to register DSC on the MCA portal; only those persons who will be signing the eForms on behalf of the Company are required to register their DSC on the MCA portal.

Registration of Foreign directors DSC on the MCA portal

Foreign directors of Indian Companies are required to obtain Digital Signature Certificate from an Indian Certifying Authority (A list of Certifying Authorities is available on the MCA portal). The process of registration for DSC is the same as applicable to others. The following are not required to register DSC on the MCA portal:

Charge-holder or assignee
Receiver or Manager in case of form CHG-6
Liquidator
Person filing form for a Company to be incorporated/ registered (other than proposed directors and practicing CA or CS)

Register DSC on MCA V3 Portal

The corporate affairs ministry has recently launched the third version of the MCA21 portal. This third version of the portal is a crucial platform for submitting the required documents and filings under the Company's law and the Limited Liability Partnership Act, which will leverage analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Important Announcement

User registration is not a pre-condition for registering the DSC on the MCA portal. However, if you are a business user and had already registered your DSC earlier, then you are not required to register the same DSC through the Register DSC facility.

Procedure to Register DSC on MCA V3 Portal

The user can follow the below-mentioned steps to register DSC on MCA V3 Portal.

Go to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' official website to register for DSC. Click on MCA Services and select the Associate DSC option from the drop-down menu.

Select the Appropriate Role of the person for whom DSC is to be registered.
- In case of Director – Select Director to update DIN details (DIR-3/DIR-6 details are required) to register DSC.
- Manager/Secretary/CEO/CFO– Income-tax PAN and DIN-3 Form details are required to register DSC.
- In the case of Practicing Professional - Provide details per the records of your professional institute.

Register DSC on MCA - Role of the person Note: Professionals of ICSI/ICAI/ICWAI having registered DSCs on the MCA21 portal with PAN and DIN numbers are requested to register the DSC with a role as Practicing Professional

On the next screen, Enter the details requested, which should be the same as in DIN/PAN/ professional institute records.

The system will verify that the DIN/PAN is valid and approved. The system will display an error message if the DIN is filled incorrectly or DIN filled is not supported.
Provide all details and ensure that more information filled is in as per DIR-3. If the applicant has filed a DIR-6, fill in the details submitted in the DIR-6 form.
Click on the 'Next' button. The system would verify the details.
Note: If the details filled do not match with DIR-3/ DIR-6, because you do not have your DIN application details, you can get the details from the Company in which you are a director.
The system will prompt the user to select the DSC if the details are correct.
To select a digital signature certificate, download & install MCA E-Signer. You can download the MCA E-Signer from the link provided on the same screen.

Note: The operating system should be Windows 10 & it should have JAVA 10 & above to install MCA E-Signer,

Insert the DSC to be registered on the MCA portal into the USB drive on your computer
Click on the 'Select Certificate' button to browse and select the certificate, enter the DSC password, and associate. Please ensure that the selected DSC belongs to the applicant whose particulars are being registered.
The system shall validate the DSC. The system will give an informatory message if the selected DSC is already registered against the given DIN. If a different DSC is registered against the given DIN, the system will ask if the user wants to update their DSC.
Type the displayed system-generated text for verification in the box provided. Accept the declaration that you have provided the correct and complete information by checking the box.
Click on the 'Submit' button to register your DSC.
A congratulatory message will be displayed. The user can take a print-out of the acknowledgment.

"Congratulations, your DSC has been successfully associated with the MCA'."