Q.Under Section 124(6) of the Companies Act, 2013, shares on which dividend has remained unclaimed for how many consecutive years must be transferred to the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF)?

The law gives a member a generous, fixed window to claim an unpaid dividend before both the dividend and the underlying shares move out of their name into the IEPF.

Under Section 124(5), any dividend remaining unpaid/unclaimed after being transferred to the Unpaid Dividend Account, if still unclaimed for a further period of 7 consecutive years, must be transferred to the IEPF along with interest. Section 124(6) extends this to the shares themselves: shares on which dividend has remained unclaimed for 7 consecutive years must also be transferred to the IEPF (into its own demat account), though the member can later reclaim both the shares and the dividend from the IEPF Authority by a specific application.

Option-by-option analysis: …