Registrar moves to strike three companies off the register

The Registrar of Joint Stock Companies has given three companies 90 days to explain why their names should not be erased from the register. The warning is contained in three notices issued under section 346(3) of the Companies Act 1994 and published in the Bangladesh Gazette of 29 October 2026, Part I, page 1361. If no cause is shown in time, the registrar states, each name will be struck off the register and the company will be dissolved.

The notices were issued by the Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC), the body that keeps the statutory register of companies and firms in Bangladesh. Each notice asks a single question of the company concerned: whether it is carrying on business, or whether its operations are still running. The gazette text is identical in all three cases and sets a single window of 90 (ninety) days from the date of publication, after which the registrar may act.

Three firms, three registration numbers

The notices are numbered consecutively and each carries its own registration file reference:

• RJS C/DN/17895, dated 1 October 2026, concerning Medidrive Limited, registration number C-26770.
• RJS C/DN/17896, dated 5 October 2026, concerning Motodrive Ltd, registration number C-20250.
• RJS C/DN/17897, dated 5 October 2026, concerning Startex Fabrics Ltd, registration number C-122466.

The first notice is signed by Jadhob Kumar Poddar, Assistant Registrar; the second and third are signed by Ananta Kumar Paul, Assistant Registrar. Both sign expressly on behalf of the Registrar, the statutory officer empowered to maintain and amend the register.

A 90-day window running from publication

Section 346(3) allows the registrar to remove a company from the register where there is reason to believe it is no longer carrying on business or in operation, provided the company is first given notice and the opportunity to object. In these three cases the gazette publication itself starts the clock: the 90-day period that began on 29 October 2026 expires on 27 January 2027.

The notices do not accuse the companies of any wrongdoing, and no allegation of default, insolvency or non-filing is made in the text. The sole test set out is whether the company is trading or in operation. A company that answers within the period, or that demonstrates continuing activity, keeps its place on the register; one that stays silent loses its legal existence as a body corporate and is dissolved.

Creditors, shareholders and staff carry the risk

A strike-off is not a neutral housekeeping step for the people around a company. Dissolution ends the company as a legal person, which affects the position of:

• Creditors holding unpaid claims against any of the three firms.
• Shareholders whose shares would cease to have a registered issuer.
• Employees whose employer of record would no longer exist.
• Any party with a pending contract, guarantee or pending litigation involving the companies.

Because the notices are addressed to the companies themselves and published in the gazette rather than to named individuals, the affected parties’ only route to contest the move is to watch the official publication and make representations to the RJSC within the period allowed. Objections that arrive after 27 January 2027 come too late for the registrar to consider them at this stage.

The same page of the gazette also carries an RJSC office order, numbered 08.04.0000.006.19.202.20.3277 and dated 6 October 2026, transferring Assistant Director Lalit Muhammad Hossain Taufiq from the RJSC special bureau in Motijheel, Dhaka, to the district registrar’s office in Cox’s Bazar, and assigning Nasrin Morshed, registration officer, additional charge of the bureau.

For the three companies, the practical question is simple: prove you are still in business, in writing, before the deadline. For everyone who deals with them, the notice is a warning that registered identity is not permanent, and that a name can disappear from the register with a single entry in the gazette.

Source: Bangladesh Gazette, 29 October 2026, Part I, p. 1361 (official reference: RJS C/DN/17895, RJS C/DN/17896, RJS C/DN/17897).