Q.Explain the procedure for transfer of shares of a company registered under the Companies Act, 2013.

A demat account is opened with a Depository Participant (DP), i.e. a bank/broker registered with a depository like NSDL or CDSL.

A demat (dematerialised) account holds shares and securities in electronic form. It is not opened directly with the depository; instead, an investor opens it through a Depository Participant (DP) — an agent registered with a depository. In India the two depositories are:

• NSDL (National Securities Depository Ltd.), and
• CDSL (Central Depository Services Ltd.).

Banks, stock-brokers and financial institutions act as DPs, and the investor submits the account-opening form with KYC documents to open the demat account.

The charge paid to government to legally stamp documents (sale/purchase of house or land, rent agreement, indemnity bond) is Stamp Duty — option (B).

Stamp duty is a tax collected by the government on the execution of certain legal instruments; paying it (affixing/franking the stamp) gives the document legal validity and evidentiary value in court. It applies to property transfer deeds, lease/rent agreements, indemnity bonds and even the share-transfer deed used in GSEB Class-12 Secretarial Practice. Testing the options:

• (A) Custom Duty — levied on goods imported into or exported out of the country.
• (B) Stamp Duty — levied on legal documents; matches the question.
• (C) Revenue — a broad term for government income, not this specific document charge.
• (D) Transfer fee — a charge sometimes levied by a company/society, not the government document tax.

Hence (B).

A company observes a shareholder's demat holdings through the depository (NSDL/CDSL) and the depository participant, not by inspecting the account itself.

When shares are held in dematerialised (demat) form, they are recorded electronically in an account maintained with a Depository Participant (DP) under a depository such as NSDL or CDSL. The company itself does not hold or directly access the investor's demat account; instead, the depository maintains the register of beneficial owners and periodically provides the company with details of who holds its shares (a 'benpos' or beneficial-position statement). Thus, whenever the company needs to know a shareholder's holding — for sending notices, dividends or for a corporate action — it obtains this information electronically from the depository through the DP. This system makes holding and transfer of shares fast, safe and paperless.

In bank correspondence the amount of money is always written in figures as well as in words.

Banks act on written money instructions where even a one-digit alteration can cause loss. To make any tampering obvious, the amount is recorded in two forms — as a numeral (e.g., 5,000) and spelt out in words (e.g., Rupees Five Thousand only). The two must agree; if they differ, the bank queries the instruction and, by long-standing convention, the amount written in words is treated as final. This double-statement of the sum is the standard practice taught in the Gujarat HSC (GSEB) Class-12 Secretarial Practice & Commercial Correspondence course for all banking letters and negotiable instruments.

NSDL = National Securities Depository Limited.

NSDL, the National Securities Depository Limited, is one of the depositories in India that holds shares and other securities in dematerialised (electronic) form in investors' demat accounts. It makes the transfer of shares faster, safer and paperless by recording ownership electronically rather than through physical certificates, which is central to the modern procedure for transfer of shares.