A client based in Melbourne called us last year. His late father — a retired government engineer from Kanpur — had bought shares in several Indian companies through the 1980s and 1990s. Physical certificates. Old ISIN numbers. A manila envelope found at the back of a steel almirah after the funeral.
The son had no demat account, no PAN linked to those certificates, and no idea that several of those shareholdings had already been transferred to a government fund because dividends had gone unclaimed for over a decade.
He asked us one question: “Is this money still mine?”
The answer was yes. But the path to reclaiming it was not simple — and it had traps for the uninformed at nearly every stage. That is what this post is about.
What the Law Says — And What Most NRIs Miss
Under Section 124 of the Companies Act, 2013, read with the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Rules, 2016, if dividends on shares remain unclaimed for seven consecutive years, the company is legally obligated to transfer both the unpaid dividends and the corresponding shares to the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) — a statutory authority under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
This is not a forfeiture. The law is clear on that. The shares continue to belong to the original investor or their legal heirs. But they are now held in custody by the IEPF Authority, and recovering them requires a formal, document-intensive claims process.
What most NRIs miss is the trigger: it is not seven years from when you stopped collecting dividends. It is seven years from the dividend declaration date. If a company declared dividends in 2010 and they went uncollected, those shares could have moved to IEPF as early as 2017 — without a single notice reaching you at your overseas address.
Why NRIs Are Disproportionately Affected
The mechanics of this problem are worth understanding before we get to the solution.
When an NRI moves abroad, their Indian address becomes a dead letter box. Dividend warrants, annual reports, and company notices keep going to a house that may now be occupied by tenants, relatives, or no one at all. The NRI’s name remains on the share register, but effective communication is severed.
In cases involving inherited shares — shares bought by a parent or grandparent who has since passed away — the problem compounds. The original shareholder is gone, the records are scattered, and the legal process for claiming the shares requires establishing heirship all over again before the question of IEPF recovery even arises.
There is also the physical share certificate problem. Until 2018, companies in India issued shares in physical form. Millions of such certificates still exist in Indian households — stuffed in drawers, stored in bank lockers, or simply forgotten. For an NRI to convert those physical certificates into a claimable form today, the process involves dematerialisation, which itself has its own set of requirements.
The Legal Framework for Claiming: Two Distinct Pathways
Before filing anything, it is important to understand that an NRI’s claim may fall under one of two legal tracks — and the mistake of treating them as the same process is one we see regularly.
Track One: Shares That Have Been Transferred to IEPF
This applies when dividends have been unclaimed for seven or more years and the company has already transferred the shares to IEPF. The remedy here is to file Form IEPF-5 on the MCA portal, supported by physical documentation submitted to the company’s designated Nodal Officer (IEPF).
Track Two: Shares That Are Still With the Company But in Physical Form
This applies when the shares have not yet moved to IEPF — perhaps because dividends were paid at some point, or the seven-year clock has not yet run. Here, the task is to first convert the physical certificates into demat form through a Registrar and Transfer Agent (RTA), and then link them to an NRO demat account.
Getting this distinction right at the outset saves weeks of misdirected effort.
The IEPF Claim Process for NRIs — Step by Step
Step 1: Verify the Transfer Status
The first step is to confirm whether the shares have in fact been transferred to IEPF. This can be done through the company’s investor relations page or the IEPF portal at iepf.gov.in. The portal allows a search by company name, shareholder name, or folio number. Most listed companies also publish annual lists of shareholders whose shares have been transferred.
Step 2: Ensure NRO Demat Account Is Active
An NRI cannot receive recovered shares into a Resident or NRE demat account. The credit must go to an NRO demat account linked to a valid PAN. If this account does not exist, opening one is the prerequisite — not the afterthought. Submitting a claim without confirming the receiving account is one of the most common reasons for refusal.
Step 3: File Form IEPF-5 Online
The Form IEPF-5 is filed electronically on the MCA portal. Every field must reflect information that exactly matches the company’s shareholder records. A name spelled differently, a PAN mismatch, or an incorrect folio number will lead to rejection. Where shares were originally held in a deceased person’s name, you cannot file Form IEPF-5 in your own name without first completing the transmission process.
Step 4: Submit Physical Documents to the Company’s Nodal Officer
This step is where most NRI claims either succeed or fail. After online filing, the claimant must dispatch a physical set of documents to the company’s Nodal Officer (IEPF) by registered post. For NRIs, the document bundle typically includes:
- A duly signed printout of Form IEPF-5 with IEPF acknowledgment number
- Self-attested copy of PAN card
- Passport copy (first and last pages, plus address page)
- Valid overseas address proof — utility bill, bank statement, or government-issued ID from the country of residence
- Original share certificates, if available
- Indemnity bond and affidavit in case of missing certificates
- Cancelled cheque of the NRO bank account
- Demat account statement confirming active NRO demat account
Here is the critical point that many NRI claimants overlook: documents executed abroad must be apostilled or notarised by the Indian Embassy or Consulate in your country of residence, or by a Notary authorised under the Hague Apostille Convention. A notarisation done locally in a different format — even by a licensed local solicitor — is regularly rejected by companies and IEPF alike.
Step 5: Company Verification and IEPF Approval
Once the physical documents reach the company, the Nodal Officer verifies the claim and submits a verification report to the IEPF Authority. IEPF then conducts its own review before approving the credit of shares to your NRO demat account and the refund of dividends to your NRO bank account.
The total timeline from filing to credit is typically 60 to 180 days, though delays are common when documents are incomplete or companies are slow to verify.
When the Shareholder Is Deceased: Transmission Comes First
If the shares were originally in the name of a parent or grandparent who has passed away, the claim cannot simply be filed in the heir’s name. Transmission of shares must be completed first — the process by which the legal ownership is formally transferred to the heir or nominee on the company’s records.
The transmission process requires a death certificate, the claimant’s identity documents, and in many cases either a notarised succession certificate issued by a competent civil court, or a probate of the Will if the deceased left one. The threshold for which document is required varies by the value of the holding and the company’s internal policy.
Only after transmission is complete — meaning the company has updated its records and the shares are now in the heir’s name — can the heir proceed to file Form IEPF-5 if the shares have already moved to IEPF, or initiate dematerialisation if they have not.
Attempting to bypass transmission and file directly as a legal heir without completing this step will result in rejection, every time.
Conclusion
Shares held in India do not expire. The law protects your right to reclaim them — whether they are sitting in a company’s records, locked in a physical certificate in someone’s almirah, or already transferred to IEPF waiting for you to step forward.
What the law cannot do is file the claim for you, organise your documents, or ensure the paperwork matches the company records precisely enough to pass verification.
At A Agarwalla & Co., we assist NRIs through the full span of this process — from tracing shareholdings and identifying the applicable track, to preparing and apostilling documents, coordinating with RTAs and Nodal Officers, and following up through to the final credit. If you have shares in India that you have not been able to access, speak with our team for a clear assessment of where your claim stands and what it will take to recover what belongs to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Do I need to travel to India to claim my shares?
No. The Form IEPF-5 is filed online, and documents are submitted by courier. A physical visit to India is not required at any stage, provided your documents are in order and properly attested.
2. My share certificates are lost. Can I still claim?
Yes. You will need to execute an indemnity bond and an affidavit on prescribed stamp paper explaining the circumstances of the loss. These documents, when properly notarised, are accepted by most companies. If shares are already in IEPF, the claim can proceed based on demat and PAN records even without physical certificates.
3. Is there a time limit within which I must claim from IEPF?
The law imposes no limitation period on IEPF claims. A shareholder — or their legal heir — can file a claim at any time, regardless of how long the shares have been sitting with IEPF.
4. What if I have both physical shares and IEPF-transferred shares in the same company?
These are handled through separate processes simultaneously. The physical shares must be dematerialised through the RTA, while the IEPF-transferred shares are recovered through Form IEPF-5. Both processes can run in parallel but involve different offices and different timelines.
5. Can I handle this process myself or do I need a lawyer?
The form itself is publicly accessible. But in practice, NRI claims involve complex document requirements, embassy attestation protocols, and exact data matching with company records — where a single error costs months. Most claimants who attempt the process without guidance end up refiling at least once. Legal assistance, particularly for inherited shares or cases involving missing certificates, reduces that risk substantially.