Two things happen at a Bengaluru annual general meeting when the auditor is appointed. The members pass the resolution, and somebody has to tell the Registrar. Most directors treat the resolution as the whole job. It is not. The resolution makes the appointment good; Form ADT-1 makes it visible to ROC Bengaluru, and only the second one carries a deadline and a fee that grows. So the choice after the meeting is narrow: file inside the window, or file later at a multiple of the fee.
Does ADT-1 apply to your Bengaluru company this year?
Every company on ROC Bengaluru's register keeps a statutory auditor. That includes a one person company run from a desk in Koramangala and a company that has been dormant for two years. Small company status does not rescue you, because that relief sits in the annual return and the cash flow statement, not in the audit.
What decides whether you file this year is the appointment itself, not the calendar. Ratification at every meeting was dropped years ago, so an auditor appointed at an annual general meeting holds office for five consecutive financial years, and the intimation goes in once for that term. It comes back around at the end of those five years, when a vacancy is filled, or when you change auditors part way through.
Three situations catch newer Bengaluru companies:
- The first auditor is appointed by the board within thirty days of incorporation. That appointment sits under a different sub section from the meeting appointment, so it deserves a considered view rather than a reflex filing.
- The auditor resigns. The board fills the vacancy, the members confirm it, and a fresh intimation follows for the incoming auditor.
- The company was incorporated late in the financial year, so its first meeting lands in a year most founders have not started tracking.
What has to sit in your records before anyone opens the form?
The form is short. What holds it up is the paperwork behind it, and a Bengaluru company that assembles this before the meeting usually files in the same week.
You need a certified copy of the resolution, with the auditor named exactly as the firm is registered. You need the auditor's written consent and the certificate confirming that the appointment is within the prescribed limits and that the firm attracts none of the disqualifications. You need the firm registration number, the membership number, the PAN and the office address, all matching what the institute holds. And the period of appointment goes in as financial years, not as a count of meetings.
Two things sink filings more often than anything else. The first is a digital signature that expired quietly, which a Bengaluru director who last signed a form a year ago tends to discover at the worst possible moment. The second is a CIN typed from memory. A Karnataka company carries the state code KA in the middle of that number, in the shape U72900KA2026PTC123456, and section 12(3)(c) already puts it on your letterhead. Read it off the letterhead.
How are the fifteen days actually counted?
Fifteen days, counted from the date of the meeting at which the auditor was appointed. Not from the close of the financial year. Not from the day the auditor sent his acceptance. Not from the day the accounts were signed.
Three counting rules settle most Bengaluru cases:
- If the meeting was adjourned and the auditor item carried over, the clock starts at the adjourned meeting where the resolution actually passed.
- If the Registrar allowed your company extra time to hold the meeting, the count still runs from the meeting you actually held.
- If the board filled a casual vacancy, the count runs from the board meeting, or from the members' approval where that was needed.
The companies that lose this hold the meeting on the last permitted day in September. The auditor is appointed on 30 September, the office thins out for the festival week, and the form surfaces in the third week of October with the window already closed.
What does a late or missed ADT-1 really cost?
There is no flat daily figure on this form. Late filing attracts a multiple of your own normal filing fee. That normal fee turns on authorised share capital, so a Whitefield company with a larger authorised capital pays more for the same delay than a smaller one filing on the same afternoon.
| Delay past the fifteen day window | Additional fee payable |
|---|---|
| Up to 15 days | One time the normal fee |
| More than 15 days and up to 30 days | Two times the normal fee |
| More than 30 days and up to 60 days | Four times the normal fee |
| More than 60 days and up to 90 days | Six times the normal fee |
| More than 90 days and up to 180 days | Ten times the normal fee |
| Beyond 180 days | Twelve times the normal fee |
The money is the smaller half of it. An unfiled intimation leaves the appointment unrecorded on the public register, and that is where a diligence team looks first when a Bengaluru company raises a round. If the default is taken further, an adjudication order can follow. Such an order carries an appeal, and for a Karnataka company that appeal goes to the Regional Director for the South-Western Region, who sits at Bengaluru. The limit is sixty days from the day the order reaches you.
How does the filing run once you hand it to us?
You send the meeting papers and the auditor's details, and nobody travels anywhere. ROC Bengaluru, which the MCA also writes as ROC Bangalore, is the one registrar for every company in the state, and the form runs end to end on the MCA V3 portal.
- We read the notice and the resolution, fix the appointment date, and give you the exact last date that day.
- We draft or correct the consent and the eligibility certificate, then check the auditor's registration details against what the form will validate.
- We prepare the form, attach the resolution and the consent, and run a pre scrutiny pass so a rejected attachment does not eat your remaining days.
- Your director signs with a registered digital signature and we file on MCA V3, where ROC Bengaluru receives it. The February 2026 restructuring left that territory alone, so a company in Chickpet and one in Hubballi file to the same office.
- You get the SRN and the challan back, and we put the acknowledgement into your statutory records alongside the resolution.
The registrar and the Regional Director for the South-Western Region sit in one building at Kendriya Sadana in Koramangala. That matters only if a default later turns into an adjudication and an appeal.
Which Bengaluru companies get caught by this most often?
- The family trading business in Chickpet that incorporated last year. The auditor has been with the family since the partnership days, so nobody treats the appointment as a reportable event, and the first meeting passes with the form unfiled.
- The IT services and staffing company in Whitefield running a group of entities. One meeting slips by a fortnight while everybody watches the operating entity, and the additional fee lands on the one nobody was looking at.
- The founder in HSR Layout who changed auditors after a funding round and filed nothing for either the outgoing or the incoming one.
- Any company whose director's digital signature has sat unused since the last annual filing and has quietly expired.
None of this is exotic. It is what a Bengaluru compliance calendar looks like when the meeting date and the fifteen day count live in somebody's head instead of a diary.
Why bring your ADT-1 filing to LegalX India?
Our CA and CS team files ADT-1 for Bengaluru companies through every AGM season, so the questions that stall a first timer get settled in one call. Which meeting starts the clock. Whether this is a fresh five year term or a continuation. Filing starts at ₹999, and the usual turnaround is 3 to 5 days once the resolution and the consent are with us.
Jurisdiction follows your own registered address and never ours, and for a Karnataka company that address always points at ROC Bengaluru. For the national position on eligibility, forms and timelines, read our complete ADT-1 filing guide for India. What this page adds is the Bengaluru layer around it. The registrar that takes the filing, the office that hears an appeal, and the counting rules that decide whether you are inside the window.