The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) will delist as many as 222 companies from tomorrow, the fourth of July as trading in their shares has remained suspended for over six months.

The authorities have been clamping down listed as well as non-listed shell companies for being allegedly used as conduits for illicit fund flows. In August last year, Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) had directed exchanges to act against 331 suspected shell companies, while the government has already deregistered more than 2 lakh firms that have not been carrying out business activities for long.

In a circular, the BSE said, "210 companies that have remained suspended for more than six months would be delisted from the platform of the exchange, with effect from July 4, 2018 pursuant to order of the delisting committee of the exchange".

It also said that six firms, namely: Asian Electronics, Birla Power Solutions, Classic Diamonds (India) Ltd, Innoventive Industries, Paramount Printpackaging and SVOGL Oil Gas And Energy have been compulsorily delisted by the NSE, and would also be delisted from the BSE from tomorrow.

As per the compulsory delisting regulations, these delisted company, its whole-time directors, promoters and group firm would be debarred from accessing the securities market for ten years from the date of compulsory delisting.

Their promoters will be required to purchase the shares from the public shareholders as per the fair value determined by the independent valuer appointed by the BSE. Additionally, these companies will be moved to the dissemination board of the exchange for five years as advised by the markets regulator Sebi.

Separately, there are six companies to be delisted tomorrow that have remained suspended for more than six months and are "under liquidation / liquidated." These are MMS Infrastructure, Oasis Textiles, Integrated Finance Company, Omnitech Infosolutions, Flawless Diamond (India) Ltd and Indo Bonito Multinational.

These companies are under liquidation, therefore the provisions of delisting regulations would not apply to these companies, their promoters and whole time directors.

Inputs from PTI