Why does a Karimnagar address still change anything?
Because a public company has more than one way out, and only the cheapest one was centralised. The other routes still end at offices drawn on a map, and which office you get is fixed by the registered office rather than by where anyone actually lives.
Since 1 May 2023 the ordinary strike off has been processed by the Registrar, C-PACE with all-India jurisdiction, so on that route Karimnagar changes nothing at all. It is the routes around it that stayed local. A voluntary liquidation ends in a dissolution order from a Tribunal bench. A conversion into a private company is decided by a Regional Director. The indemnity bond and affidavit are executed on state stamp paper before a local notary. And the filing backlog that has to be cleared first still goes to the jurisdictional Registrar.
So, in short, the cheap exit is national and everything around it is not. That is the honest version of what a location page can tell you, and it is why this page names offices instead of promising speed.
- Tribunal benchNCLT Hyderabad Bench
- Regional DirectorateSoutheastern Region Directorate
- Stamp dutyTelangana schedule
- Strike off filed toC-PACE, all-India
| Part of the exit | Decided nationally | Decided in Telangana |
|---|---|---|
| Form STK-2 strike off | Registrar, C-PACE | Nothing |
| Flat ₹10,000 filing fee | Rule 4(1) | Nothing |
| Section 248(2) consent threshold | 75% of paid-up capital | Nothing |
| Overdue AOC-4, MGT-7, DPT-3 | MCA fee schedule | Filed to the Telangana Registrar |
| STK-3 bond and STK-4 affidavit | Forms are national | Telangana stamp duty and notary |
| Section 59 dissolution order | The Code is national | NCLT Hyderabad Bench |
| Section 271 winding-up petition | The grounds are national | NCLT Hyderabad Bench |
| Conversion into a private company | Section 14 and Rule 41 | Southeastern Region Directorate |
| Professional tax surrender | Nothing | Telangana department |
| Shops and Establishments closure | No central statute exists | Telangana labour department |
Your bench is the NCLT Hyderabad Bench
Two of the four exits open to a public company end at a bench of the National Company Law Tribunal, and jurisdiction follows the registered office rather than the directors, the shareholders or the business.
| Route | What the bench does | Statutory basis |
|---|---|---|
| Voluntary liquidation | Passes the dissolution order once the liquidator has realised the assets, paid the creditors in full and filed the final report. | Section 59(7) and 59(8), Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 |
| Winding up by the Tribunal | Hears the petition and, on one of the five surviving grounds, orders the company wound up. | Sections 271 and 272, Companies Act, 2013 |
| Insolvency resolution | Admits an application where the company cannot pay its debts, and appoints the resolution professional. | Sections 7, 9 and 10, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 |
| Restoration after a strike off | Orders the company restored to the register on an appeal or an application. | Section 252, Companies Act, 2013 |
| Ordinary strike off | Nothing. It never reaches a bench. This is the route most companies here are on. | Section 248, decided by the Registrar, C-PACE |
The NCLT Hyderabad Bench, and what it covers
The NCLT Hyderabad Bench, sitting at Hyderabad has jurisdiction over Telangana. Benches were constituted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs notification of 1 June 2016 and the map has been amended since as benches were added: Jaipur from 1 July 2018, Cuttack from 15 July 2018 taking Odisha and Chhattisgarh, Kochi from 1 August 2018, and Amaravati and Indore from 8 March 2019.
The single fact most competing pages still get wrong is that Andhra Pradesh moved from Hyderabad to Amaravati in July 2019, so Hyderabad now covers Telangana alone. Sikkim sits with Guwahati under the 2016 notification and not with Kolkata. We confirm the current position before any petition or application is drawn, because filing at the wrong bench costs a listing and a fee.
Conversion goes to the Regional Director, Southeastern Region Directorate
The exit a good share of this audience actually wants is not a closure at all. It is to stop being a public company and carry on trading, and that application is decided regionally rather than centrally.
Who decides a conversion into a private company, and on what
Section 14 of the Companies Act, 2013 lets a public company alter its articles so as to become a private company, with the approval of the Central Government. That power is exercised through the Regional Director, and Rule 41 of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014 sets out the procedure: a special resolution, then Form RD-1 within sixty days of it, an advertisement in Form INC-25A and individual notices by registered post to every creditor and debenture holder and to the Regional Director, the Registrar and any sectoral regulator, all at least twenty-one days before the application, and the Regional Director's order filed with the Registrar in Form INC-28 within fifteen days.
One correction worth carrying, because older material still repeats it: the rule once provided that an unopposed application would be deemed approved if the Regional Director did not act within a period. That sub-clause was omitted with effect from 25 January 2021. There is no deemed approval any more, and a plan built on one will simply stall.
Your directorate after the February 2026 redraw
A company registered in Karimnagar applies to the Regional Director, Southeastern Region Directorate at Hyderabad, which covers Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. This map is new. Notification S.O. 4852(E) dated 23 October 2025, made under Section 396(1) in supersession of the 2015 notification, replaced the seven Regional Directorates with ten, and the amending notification of 30 December 2025 deferred it from 1 January 2026 to 16 February 2026.
Anything published before that date, including most directories and most competing pages, will point you at an office that no longer holds your file. We confirm the office in writing before the Form RD-1 is drawn.
Which Registrar actually holds your file?
C-PACE decides the exit. Your own Registrar still receives everything that has to be true before the exit can be filed, and on a public company that list is longer than on a private one.
- AOC-4, the financial statements, for every year the company has existed
- MGT-7, the annual return, for the same years
- DPT-3, the return of deposits and outstanding loans, which a public company owes more often than a private one
- CHG-4, satisfaction of every charge already repaid, because an open charge is a Rule 3(1) bar
- DIR-3 KYC for each director, with any deactivated DIN reactivated
- MGT-14, the closure special resolution, within thirty days of passing it
- ADT-1 or ADT-3 where an auditor was appointed or resigned and never intimated
- Any pending adjudication or compounding, which bars the strike off until it is concluded
Why the backlog is the first thing we quote and the first thing we file
Because it is the only part of the timeline you control, and because it grows on its own. The additional fee runs with the delay on every form, so a company that decides to close in March and starts in September pays more for the same filings. Beyond the money, three of the Rule 3(1) bars, an open charge, a pending prosecution and a pending compounding application, sit in the same master data C-PACE reads when it opens your STK-2, so a backlog is not just expensive, it is visible.
The clock that matters most, though, is Section 164(2): three continuous financial years of unfiled financial statements or annual returns disqualifies every director for five years, on every board that person sits on. Directors of public companies typically sit on more boards than directors of private ones, so the cost of that clock landing is larger here than anywhere else in the cluster.
Does the meeting have to be held in Karimnagar?
Almost every board assumes the closure meeting has to happen at the registered office. For the meeting that actually carries the closure resolution, it does not, and knowing that turns an impossible gathering into a practical one.
The closure meeting: anywhere in India
- The closure resolution is normally passed at an extraordinary general meeting.
- Where the Board calls it, the proviso to Section 100(1) requires only that it be held at a place within India.
- It does not have to be in Karimnagar, or near the registered office, or in Telangana at all.
- It may also be held by video conference, extended until further orders by General Circular 03/2025 of 22 September 2025, with proceedings deemed conducted at the registered office.
- So the meeting can be convened wherever the shareholders actually are, which on an old public company is rarely one city.
- The only company excluded from the India limb is the wholly owned subsidiary of a company incorporated outside India, which may meet outside it.
The AGM: tied to the address
- The annual general meeting is the one tied to the address.
- Section 96(2) requires it at the registered office, or somewhere in the same city, town or village.
- Only an unlisted company may move its AGM elsewhere in India, and only with the prior written consent of all its members.
- Business hours apply too: between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., and not on a National Holiday.
- A meeting called on a requisition by members is pinned the same way, to the registered office or the same city, town or village, and to business hours.
- So a company clearing an AGM backlog, or facing a requisitioned meeting, does have a Karimnagar constraint even where a Board-called closure meeting does not.
And if the shareholders will not come at all
Two answers, and one of them removes the meeting entirely. First, remember that Section 248(2) offers a choice: a special resolution or the written consent of members holding seventy-five per cent of the paid-up share capital. On a register where a promoter group or a holding company holds most of the capital, the consent limb needs no meeting, no notice period and no quorum, and it removes a month from the timeline.
Second, if a meeting is genuinely needed and nobody turns up, two sub-sections rescue it. Section 103(2)(a) adjourns the meeting to the same day in the next week, at the same time and place or as the Board determines, rather than killing it, and Section 103(3) then provides that if a quorum is still absent at that adjourned meeting the members present shall be the quorum. Watch the exception in Section 103(2)(b): a meeting called on a members' requisition stands cancelled instead of adjourned, so convene the closure meeting on the Board's own motion. The proviso to Section 103(2) also wants not less than three days' notice of the adjourned meeting, given individually or by advertisement in one English and one vernacular newspaper circulating where the registered office is situate, which for you means a Telangana newspaper. A company whose shareholders scattered a decade ago is not locked out of its own closure. It takes one extra week and a correctly minuted adjournment.
The Telangana stamp paper, and the notary
The smallest line in the quote and the one that most often sends an application back. Two documents in a strike off carry state stamp duty, and both are signed by every director.
| Document | Who signs | Why it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Form STK-3, indemnity bond | Every director, notarised | Executed on another state's stamp paper, or dated before the resolution it refers to. |
| Form STK-4, affidavit | Every director, sworn and notarised | One director's affidavit missing, or a name that does not match the DIN record exactly. |
| Form STK-8, statement of accounts | Certified by a practising professional | Made up to a date more than thirty days before the application, which is a hard limit rather than a guideline. |
| Board and members' resolutions | Chair, with the notice and attendance record | Dated inconsistently against the twenty-one day notice period or the thirty-day MGT-14 window. |
| Declaration of solvency, liquidation route only | A majority of directors, by affidavit | Sworn before the audited figures and the valuation it has to be consistent with were finalised. |
What the local cost actually is
A few hundred rupees of non-judicial stamp paper per document at Telangana rates, plus the notary's fee, repeated across every director. On a public company with three or more directors that is still a small number, and it is the only line in a strike-off quote that legitimately varies because the office is in Karimnagar. Everything else on the government side, the flat ₹10,000 on Form STK-2, the MGT-14 slab, the additional fee on the backlog, is set nationally.
Treat any other geographically varying charge on a quote as a question to ask. There is no Karimnagar filing fee, no local processing charge and no expedite option, because the office that decides the application is not in Karimnagar.
Find out which route a Karimnagar public company is actually on
The Telangana registrations to unwind
The central registrations are the same wherever the company sits. These are the ones Telangana issued, and they keep generating a demand until somebody closes them.
| Registration | Issued by | When |
|---|---|---|
| Professional tax | Telangana commercial tax department | Before the exit filing |
| Shops and Establishments | Telangana labour department | Before the exit filing. No central statute exists. |
| GST registration | Your jurisdictional GST officer | Form REG-16, then GSTR-10 within three months |
| TAN and TDS | Income Tax Department | Final returns, then the TAN surrender |
| Income tax | Income Tax Department | Final return of income while the company still exists |
| Labour and social security | EPFO and ESIC, where staff were employed | Final contributions and the closure intimation |
| Bank accounts | Your bankers | Last. Every filing above may need a payment. |
Professional tax in Telangana
Telangana levies professional tax, so a company that paid salaries here holds a registration certificate for the tax deducted from them, and usually an enrolment certificate as well. Both are surrendered with the state department, both want the pending returns filed and the dues cleared first, and both keep generating a demand while they stay open.
The offices and forms named on this page
- NCLT Hyderabad Bench
- The bench of the NCLT with jurisdiction over Telangana. It passes the dissolution order that ends a Section 59 voluntary liquidation and hears a Section 271 winding-up petition. It has nothing to do with an ordinary strike off.
- Southeastern Region Directorate
- The office of the Regional Director that decides a conversion from public to private on Form RD-1 under Rule 41. The ten directorates replaced the older seven on 16 February 2026.
- C-PACE
- The central office at the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Manesar that has processed every Section 248 strike-off application with all-India jurisdiction since 1 May 2023. Not in Karimnagar, and not reachable through a local relationship.
- Registrar of Companies, Telangana
- The office that still receives the AOC-4, MGT-7, DPT-3, CHG-4, DIR-3 KYC and MGT-14 filings a company must have clean before it can apply to be struck off.
- Form STK-3 and Form STK-4
- The indemnity bond and the affidavit every director signs, both executed on Telangana non-judicial stamp paper and notarised. The only line in a strike-off quote that legitimately varies by state.
Documents we will ask for
The same pack anywhere in India, with two Telangana specific items. Keep every file as a clear PDF and make sure the company name and CIN read identically across all of them.
- Certificate of incorporation, CIN, PAN and the memorandum and articles
- Register of members with addresses, and the shareholding by paid-up value
- Listing and delisting history, with any exchange correspondence
- Audited financial statements for every year, however thin
- Statement of accounts for Form STK-8, dated within thirty days of the application
- Deposit register and DPT-3 filings, where deposits or loans were taken
- Index of charges with no-dues letters for anything repaid
- Telangana non-judicial stamp paper for the STK-3 bond and STK-4 affidavit
- Registered office proof in Karimnagar, which fixes the bench and the directorate
- DIN and DSC for each director, with DIR-3 KYC current
How we run a public company exit from Karimnagar
Seven stages, and the step-by-step order matters more than the speed of any one of them. The first two are free and they decide the price of the other five.
Confirm the route
We run the company against the Rule 3(1) bars: listing status, delisting reason, outstanding public deposits, charges pending satisfaction, inspection, investigation, prosecution or compounding. This decides whether the strike off exists for you at all.
Name the Karimnagar authorities
We confirm the Tribunal bench and Regional Directorate that a registered office in Karimnagar falls under, and the jurisdictional Registrar for Telangana, in writing, before anything is quoted.
Clear the Registrar backlog
Every overdue AOC-4, MGT-7 and DPT-3 filed with the additional fee, CHG-4 for repaid charges, DIR-3 KYC completed and deactivated DINs reactivated. Nothing else moves until the master data is clean.
Gather the consent
Either written consent from holders of 75% of the paid-up capital, or a general meeting on twenty-one clear days' notice, which where the Board calls it may under the proviso to Section 100(1) be held at any place within India rather than in Karimnagar.
Execute on Telangana stamp paper
The Form STK-3 indemnity bond and Form STK-4 affidavit are drawn on Telangana non-judicial stamp paper and notarised, and the Form STK-8 statement of accounts is dated inside its thirty-day window.
File MGT-14, then STK-2
The special resolution reaches the Telangana Registrar within thirty days, and the strike-off application goes to the Registrar, C-PACE with the flat ₹10,000 and the full attachment set.
Answer STK-6, receive STK-7
C-PACE publishes the objection notice, allows thirty days and then publishes the striking-off notice. We answer anything raised on the record and hand you an indexed closure file to keep for eight years.
| Stage | Typical time | Waiting on |
|---|---|---|
| Step 1: Route and authority check | 2 to 5 days | Us, on your CIN |
| Step 2: Registrar backlog | 3 to 10 weeks | You on records, then the Telangana Registrar |
| Step 3: Consent or general meeting | 1 to 5 weeks | The notice period, or your shareholders |
| Step 4: Stamp paper and notarisation | 2 to 5 days | A notary in Karimnagar |
| Step 5: MGT-14 and STK-2 filing | 2 to 4 weeks | The Registrar, then C-PACE |
| Step 6: C-PACE processing to STK-6 | 4 to 10 weeks | One national queue, not Karimnagar |
| Step 7: Objection window and STK-7 | 30 days, then 2 to 6 weeks | The public, then the Registrar |
Guides and resources
Longer reading on each route and each clearance, written by the team that files these applications with the Registrar, the Regional Director and the Tribunal.
Public company exits from Karimnagar: frequent questions
Answered for a company whose registered office is in Karimnagar, Telangana, against the Companies Act, 2013, the 2016 removal rules and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
Nebin Binoy 
