NEW DELHI: It is not very uncommon for agencies entrusted with the responsibility of issuing government documents like Aadhar, Voter Id cards, driving license, etc. to mess up with your official name. Invariably, they end up spelling your name incorrectly, omitting your middle name or committing other silly mistakes with your name.
So, what happens if there’s a minor mismatch of name between any two sets of documents presented by an investor to the Registrar and Transfer Agent (RTA) for any service request? The capital market regulator – Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) – recently came out with a set of standard procedures to deal with such situations.
As per the new norms, for minor mismatch in name between any two set of documents, the RTA should additionally obtain any one of the following documents, explaining the difference in names – Aadhaar, passport, driving license, PAN card with photograph, marriage certificate, divorce decree or identity card/document with applicant’s photo, issued by central/state government and its departments, statutory/regulatory authorities, public sector undertakings, banks, public financial institutions.
RTAs are entities or institutions which register and keep record of transactions of investors. The existing norms of the depositories – entities where share, mutual fund units and debt securities are kept in electronic form -- to process demat request where there is a minor mismatch of name, provided the signature in the Demat Request Form matches with the signature card with the RTA, will continue to be in force. Then there are situations which arise due to minor or major mismatch of signatures of the holders of securities.
As per the new Sebi rules, in case of major mismatch in the signature of the holder as available in the folio of the RTA and the present signature or if the same is not available with the RTA, then the holder/claimant should furnish original cancelled cheque and banker’s attestation of the signature in a particular format.