Service on a Foreign Company: Section 383

Service on a foreign company is settled in one sentence of the Companies Act, 2013. Section 383 says any process, notice or other document required to be served on a foreign company is deemed to be sufficiently served if it is addressed to a person whose name and address were delivered to the Registrar under section 380, and left at, or sent by post to, that address, or sent by electronic mode.

What does section 383 say about service on a foreign company?

It sets a deeming rule, not an exclusive one. The section says service shall be deemed to be sufficiently served if three things line up:

1. the document is addressed to any person whose name and address have been delivered to the Registrar under section 380; and
2. it is left at, or sent by post to, the address which has been so delivered to the Registrar; or
3. it is sent by electronic mode.

The whole rule hangs off the section 380 file. Nothing in section 383 asks whether the addressee is a director, an officer or an employee. It asks whether that person's name and address were delivered to the Registrar under section 380, which in practice means clause (d) of section 380(1): one or more persons resident in India authorised to accept service on the company's behalf. The section 380 filing page sets out all eight clauses.

Why is the section 380 filing the pivot?

Because the deeming rule has no independent address of its own. A claimant does not have to find the foreign company's real decision-makers, or serve anything abroad, to get the benefit of section 383. They have to read the Registrar's file.

That makes section 380(3) more than a housekeeping duty. Sub-section (3) requires a return of any alteration in the delivered documents within thirty days of the alteration, and an out-of-date section 380(1)(d) entry is exactly the kind of alteration it covers. The company that lets the entry go stale is the party that carries the consequence of service at a filed address, since section 383 keys to what was delivered to the Registrar rather than to where anyone actually is.

Does section 383 close off other ways of serving?

Not on its own words. The section says service in the stated manner is deemed to be sufficiently served; it does not say service in any other manner is bad. Whether some other route is also good is a question of the general law of service rather than of this section, and this page does not answer it.

That is a reading of the drafting rather than a statement either way by the section, and it is flagged as such because the difference between "this is enough" and "only this is enough" is the whole practical question here.

Where section 383 sits for a filings reader

It is the clearest illustration of why the Chapter XXII file matters to people outside the company. The Registrar's record of a foreign company is not only a compliance artefact; it is the address at which the Act deems the company reachable. Section 380 puts the entry there, section 380(3) keeps it current, and section 383 gives it legal effect.

Section 379(1) applies section 383 to all foreign companies, alongside sections 380 to 386 and sections 392 and 393. That list is covered on the foreign company page. Failure to comply with the Chapter does not invalidate the company's contracts, but it does bar the company from suing on them until it complies, which is covered on the contract validity page.

Where this sits in the disclosure picture

• Documents a foreign company files with the Registrar covers the section 380(1)(d) entry that section 383 points at.
• Foreign company under the Companies Act covers the definition and the section 379(1) list.
• Validity of a foreign company contract covers section 393, which preserves the company's liability to be sued.
• Penalty for a foreign company default covers the section 392 consequence of a Chapter contravention.
• Place of business under the Companies Act covers the section 386 definitions used across the Chapter.

Service on a foreign company runs through the Registrar's file, which is why keeping that file current is the company's problem and not the server's. Flock reports the filings themselves, each stamped with its date and linked back to the exchange or regulator that published it. What any of it means for you is your call to make.