Service
Corporate Secretarial Services
We keep your company's statutory record in order: registers, SECP filings, board and AGM support, and share transfers — run on a calendar, not on memory. The unglamorous work that decides whether your next due diligence takes a week or a quarter.
Every company under the Companies Act, 2017 lives twice: once in the real world, where decisions get made and shares change hands, and once on paper, in registers, minutes, and SECP filings. The law cares intensely about the second life. When the two diverge — and left unmanaged, they always diverge — the company pays for it at the worst moments: a fundraise stalls on an unreconstructable cap table, a bank declines a facility over a stale record, a dispute turns on a minute that was never written.
Corporate secretarial work is the discipline of keeping the two lives identical, and it is a system, not a scramble. Our retainer is built around a filings calendar generated from your company's actual obligations — annual, event-based, and meeting-related — with named owners and lead times, so no deadline depends on anyone's memory. Registers are written up within days of each event, minutes drafted while the meeting is fresh, and a quarterly note tells you the record is current or exactly where it is not.
The retainer begins with a baseline review, because most companies come to us with history: transfers never papered, directors never filed, registers never opened. We reconcile the SECP record, your registers, and reality, and quote the clean-up as a one-time project. This beginning converts unknown exposure into a priced to-do list.
The practical case for the service is simple economics. The work is modest when done continuously and expensive when reconstructed under deadline, and the difference surfaces in diligence, before a lender, or across a negotiating table. A company whose paper life matches its real one closes faster and negotiates from cleaner ground. As of July 2026, this page states the Companies Act, 2017 regime generally; form numbers, thresholds, and filing windows are bracketed for verification by the reviewing lawyer before reliance.
What You Get
The deliverables, stated up front.
- Reconstructed and maintained statutory registers — members, directors and officers, and charges — matching the SECP record and the company's actual history.
- A filings calendar covering every recurring and event-based SECP return that applies to your company, with owners and lead times assigned.
- Preparation and filing of the annual return and event-based returns — changes of directors, officers, registered office, and share capital — on the prescribed forms [FORM NUMBERS — TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER].
- Board meeting support: notices, agendas, draft resolutions, and minutes that record decisions the way a future reader needs them recorded.
- AGM support end to end — notice within the statutory period, proxies, quorum, the resolutions themselves, and the filings that follow.
- Share transfer execution: instrument of transfer, stamping, board approval, register entries, and new certificates, done in the right order.
- A standing minute book and records file — physical or digital — that is due-diligence-ready at any moment, not assembled in a panic.
How It Works
The process, stage by stage.
1
Baseline review
We begin every retainer by reconciling three things: the SECP's record of your company, your statutory registers, and what actually happened. They rarely match at the start; the gaps become a one-time clean-up list, quoted separately, so the retainer begins from a true baseline.
2
Calendar build
We map every obligation that applies to your company under the Companies Act, 2017 and its regulations — the annual return, event-based filings, meeting requirements — into a dated calendar with named owners and reminder lead times. Nothing on the calendar depends on anyone remembering anything.
3
Running the year
Through the year we prepare and file returns as events occur, paper the board meetings, and keep the registers current within days of each event, not annually in arrears. You get a short quarterly status note: what was filed, what is due, what we are waiting on from you.
4
Meetings and decisions
For board meetings and the AGM we handle notice, agenda, draft resolutions, and minutes. Where a decision needs specific formalities — a change of name, an alteration of articles, an increase of capital — we sequence the member approval, the filing, and the effective date so they happen in the lawful order.
5
Transfers and changes
Share transfers, allotments, and director changes are where informal companies hurt themselves most. We run each one as a checklist: the instrument, the stamp duty, the board resolution, the register entry, the certificate, the SECP return — complete, dated, and filed.
The Legal Framework
The law this work runs on.
- Companies Act, 2017
- The source of nearly every obligation this service manages: statutory registers, annual and event-based returns, board and general meeting requirements, and the formalities of share issuance and transfer. Specific sections and filing windows are confirmed per company by the reviewing lawyer.
- Companies (General Provisions and Forms) Regulations, 2018 [TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER]
- Prescribe the forms and manner of filings with the SECP. We track amendments to the forms regime so your filings use the current prescribed versions.
- SECP online filing system
- Statutory filings are made through the SECP's electronic portal. We maintain the company's portal credentials, authorised-intermediary status, and filing records as part of the retainer [CURRENT PORTAL AND INTERMEDIARY REQUIREMENTS — TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER].
- Stamp Act, 1899 (as applicable in Punjab)
- Share transfer instruments attract stamp duty under the provincial regime; an unstamped or under-stamped instrument undermines the transfer it was meant to effect. Rates and e-stamping mechanics for Punjab are confirmed at the time of each transfer.
Statutory references are stated as of the page’s as-of date and flagged where verification is pending; the law moves, and the current position should be confirmed before relying on it.
Common Mistakes
The errors we see most — and their price.
- Treating the annual return as the whole of compliance and ignoring the event-based filings that fall due within days of a change.
- Changing directors in reality but not on the register or at the SECP, so the public record shows people who left years ago.
- Transferring shares on a handshake — no instrument, no stamping, no register entry — and discovering at the fundraise that the cap table is an oral tradition.
- Holding no board meetings and writing no minutes, then needing evidence of a decision the company genuinely made.
- Missing the AGM deadline and accumulating a default that surfaces as a question in every subsequent diligence.
- Letting the auditor, the accountant, and a junior admin each hold a fragment of the record, with no one owning the whole.
Questions, Answered
What clients ask about corporate secretarial services.
It depends on the class of company — the Companies Act, 2017 mandates a company secretary for certain companies and not for others [THRESHOLDS — TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER]. Whether or not the appointment is mandatory for you, the underlying work is not optional: the registers, returns, and meeting formalities apply regardless.
At minimum the annual return, plus a return for each event: change of directors or officers, change of registered office, allotments, transfers in some cases, and alterations to the articles or capital. The honest answer is that the list depends on what happens in your year — which is why the deliverable is a calendar, not a leaflet.
It is fixable, and it is common. The baseline review establishes what is missing; overdue filings are then made with the applicable additional fees. The cost of clean-up is almost always smaller than founders fear, and dramatically smaller than the cost of a failed diligence. We quote the clean-up as a defined project before the retainer starts.
Yes, and the retainer works best that way. The accountant handles tax and books; the auditor the accounts; we handle the corporate record and SECP filings. We coordinate the calendar so the AGM, the accounts, and the annual return land in the right sequence.
In outline: the transferor and transferee execute an instrument of transfer, duly stamped; the board approves the transfer, subject to any pre-emption rights in the articles; the register of members is written up; a new certificate issues; and any required return is filed. Skipping any step leaves the transfer open to challenge — the order is the point.
A fixed annual or monthly fee by engagement letter, based on company class and expected activity, with one-time clean-up work and out-of-scope projects quoted separately. Government fees are itemised at cost. [FEE STRUCTURE — TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE FIRM]
Who To Call
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Prepared by The First Counsel · As of 2026-07-12 · Pending professional review — statements flagged in the text are being verified
This publication is provided for general information only. It is not legal advice, and neither reading it nor corresponding with the firm about it creates a lawyer–client relationship. The position stated must be verified against current law before it is relied upon.