‘Resident Public Limited Company' Notified to be Eligible as an ‘Applicant' for Advance Rulings under Customs

By Vijay Kumar

SECTION 28E(c) of the Customs Act, 1962 defines an ‘applicant' eligible to apply for Advance Rulings as follows:

“(c) ‘applicant' means -
(i) (a) a non-resident setting up a joint venture in India in collaboration with a non-resident or a resident; or
(b) a resident setting up a joint venture in India in collaboration with a non-resident; or
(c) a wholly owned subsidiary Indian company, of which the holding company is a foreign company,
who or which, as the case may be, proposes to undertake any business activity in India;
(ii) a joint venture in India; or
(iii) a resident falling within any such class or category of persons, as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify in this behalf,
and which or who, as the case may be, makes application for advance ruling under sub-section (1) of section 28H;
Explanation. - For the purposes of this clause, "joint venture in India" means a contractual arrangement whereby two or more persons undertake an economic activity which is subject to joint control and one or more of the participants or partners or equity holders is a non-resident having substantial interest in such arrangement.” (emphasis supplied)

Now, in terms of sub-clause (iii) ibid, the Central Government has notified ‘resident public limited company' as class of persons for the purposes of the said clause. For this purpose, the phrases ‘public limited company' and ‘resident' are explained as follows:

‘public limited company' shall have the same meaning as is assigned to “public company” in clause (iv ) of sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956) and shall include a private company that becomes a public company by virtue of section 43A of the said Companies Act, 1956;

‘resident' shall have the same meaning as is assigned to it in clause (42) of section 2 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (43 of 1961) in so far it applies to a company.

Notification No. ., Dated: September 22, 2011