RUN - two names & 1 resubmission

Ministry of Corporate Affairs is planning to somewhat ease the serious issues in company incorporation in India by allowing two names in their new RUN (Reserve Unique Name) system on their website and also allow one resubmission.

Even then the serious problems remain that MCA is quick to reject the names proposed on totally vague and illogical grounds. Common rejection reasons are that the name is closely resembling to some existing name already registered. But when you compare the name proposed with the name it is supposedly resembling to, there is not even a remote resemblance, forget about close resemblance. Secondly, when the applicants do a name check on the MCA portal, they do not get these names which are supposed to be closely resembling to the names proposed. So MCA is using a different algorithm when they are checking from their side to what the user is able to generate when he is checking from his side. This is not helping matters.  Thirdly the user is clicking the Auto Check option on the RUN system, still it is not throwing up any identical names. So something is seriously wrong with the MCA system. It is not working to the satisfaction of the user.

Then there is another issue, that of TM comparison. When the user does a check on the TM site, he does so normally only for the class of business in which the company is going to be involved in, not all the classes of businesses. Now MCA is rejecting names on the ground that the TM is registered in another class different from what the proposed company is going to do business in. Such general and wide ranging rejections is not helping matters at all. It is not at all Ease of Doing Business as the government is claiming to be. Why is the MCA getting involved in TM matters. Let the companies who are affected by similar trade marks take action under the relevant Trade Marks Act. Secondly it is only an incorporation stage, not the TM stage, there is no logo or trade mark involved at the incorporation stage. This kind of overarching abuse of power is not helping India generate businesses and thereby employment and asset creation of which there is a dire need.  

New system for reserving name

MCA has vide its notification dated 20th January, 2018 introduced a new system of name reservation for new companies as well as existing companies. It is called RUN (Reserve Unique Name) and it is available on the webspace as against a form which was hitherto the norm with MCA. So form INC-1 has been done away with.

RUN does not ask for too many details - just entity type, CIN, proposed name & comments. One needs to feed data into it and see how it works before commenting on the efficacy of the system.

Hitherto the form INC-1 used to run into a wall called the Central Reservation Centre or CRC. The CRC was known mostly for rejecting names rather than approving them and they had a funny, vague and ambiguous internal guidelines which they followed ridiculously. That is if the proposed name matched an existing entity's name by 50% it was automatically rejected. It is so silly and in absence of no further details as to how that system worked, it was a pain in the wrong place.

RUN does not require any digital signature to be uploaded, so hope it is not subject to misuse. People could just apply for several unique names and sit on it thereby preventing those names from being available for genuine entrepreneurs. I hope this is not the case. As i have said elsewhere unless and until we go through the new system, we will be unable to comment on its efficacy.

Also not aware if the RUN has some fees to be paid, which i am sure it has, then people could end up paying multiple times for different names because there is no resubmission process in the RUN system.

I hope RUN has some kind of appeal system in place otherwise what will happen is again some stupid internal guidelines will be followed much to the heartburn of genuine entrepreneurs.


In fact the CRC was so idiotic that they used to reject change name applications of existing companies without giving it any thought whatsoever.

Apparently the form INC-32(SPICe) has also been amended alongwith the digital MOA and AOA in forms INC-33 and INC-34 respectively. One has to look into these forms to find out what changes they have made.

Where the no. of subscribers to a new company are more than 7 or where the documents are being executed outside India, then the digital MOA & AOA is not to be used. Instead the duly signed MOA & AOA needs to be attached to the form INC-32.