Manish, a shareholder of a company has not claimed his dividends from the company for the last 10 years due to different reasons. He wants to know…

Section 124 of the Companies Act, 2013 contains the provisions relating to Unpaid Dividend Account (UDA). Unpaid or Unclaimed Dividend to be transferred to the Unpaid Dividend Account. Where a dividend has been declared by a company but has not been paid or claimed within 30 days from the date of declaration, the company shall, within 7 days from the expiry of the said period of 30m days, transfer the total amount of unpaid or unclaimed dividend to a special account called the 'Unpaid Dividend Account' which shall be opened in any scheduled bank. If any money transferred to this Unpaid Dividend Account remains unpaid or unclaimed for a period of seven years from the date of transfer of such account, it shall be transferred by the company along with interest accrued thereon to the Investor Education and Protection Fund established under section 125 (1) of the Companies Act, 2013 maintained and administered by the Central Government. As per section 124 (6) of the Act, all shares in respect of which the dividend has not been paid or claimed for 7 consecutive years or more shall be transferred by the company in the name of Investor Education and Protection Fund along with a statement containing the prescribed details. As per the facts of the question, Manish, a shareholder of the company has not claimed his dividends from the company for the last 10 years. Eventually, after expiry of the 7 th consecutive year, the shares of Manish along with the dividends due to him for the last 10 years would have been already transferred by the company to the Investor Education and Protection Fund along with a statement containing the prescribed details. Therefore, Manish should claim his shares along with the dividends due from IEPF in accordance with the prescribed procedure and on submission of prescribed documents.