Eligible Company for Public Deposits (Section 76)

An eligible company for public deposits section 76 of the Companies Act, 2013 describes is a public company that may take deposits from people who are not its members. Section 73 shuts that door for companies generally. Section 76 opens it for one narrow population, and attaches an annual credit rating and a charge-creation deadline to the privilege.

What section 76 actually says about an eligible company for public deposits

Sub-section (1) opens with a non obstante clause: "Notwithstanding anything contained in section 73, a public company, having such net worth or turnover as may be prescribed, may accept deposits from persons other than its members." That is the whole of the permission, and it is conditional on two things at once, compliance with the requirements in section 73(2), and compliance with such rules as the Central Government may prescribe in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India.

A note on the phrase in the search query. The Act does not use the words "eligible company". They come from the rules made under sections 73 and 76, and this page does not restate those rules: the Companies (Acceptance of Deposits) Rules, 2014 were not publicly reachable from a primary source on 29 August 2026, when this page was written, at either the Ministry of Corporate Affairs or India Code. The statutory test is the one above, a public company of prescribed net worth or turnover, and the prescribed figures live in those rules.

The three tests a section 76 company has to pass

The middle row is what makes section 76 a widening of section 73 rather than an alternative to it. The circular to be issued, the copy filed with the Registrar thirty days before it is issued, the twenty per cent deposit repayment reserve account funded by 30 April each year, the no-default certification and the security provisions all come across from section 73(2).

The two provisos: a rating every year, and a charge in thirty days

The first proviso to section 76(1) is a continuing obligation, not a one-off. The company must obtain a rating from a recognised credit rating agency, and the section says what the rating has to cover: the company's net worth, its liquidity, and its ability to pay its deposits on the due date. The rating is obtained for informing the public of the rating given at the time of invitation of deposits, and, in the proviso's own words, "the rating shall be obtained for every year during the tenure of deposits".

An annual rating on a live deposit programme is a dated, public data point about a company that may publish very little else.

The second proviso sets the size of that charge as well as its deadline. The charge must be on assets of an amount not less than the amount of deposits accepted, created in favour of the deposit holders, in accordance with such rules as may be prescribed. A charge is a registrable event under Chapter VI of the Act, which is what makes this proviso visible on the Registrar's record rather than only in the deposit documents.

Section 76(2) then applies the rest of Chapter V. The provisions of the Chapter apply, mutatis mutandis, to the acceptance of deposits from the public under section 76.

Section 73 against section 76

The last row is the one people miss. Section 76A is drafted as the punishment for contravention of section 73 or section 76, so a public company's wider permission does not come with a softer consequence. A contravention carries a fine on the company of not less than one crore rupees or twice the deposit accepted, whichever is lower, extending to ten crore rupees, and for every officer in default, imprisonment which may extend to seven years with a fine of not less than twenty-five lakh rupees extending to two crore rupees.

• What is a deposit under the Companies Act covers the section 2(31) definition and the section 73 prohibition this section is an exception to.
• Interim dividend vs final dividend covers section 123, whose sub-section (6) bars an equity dividend while a sections 73 and 74 default continues.
• What is fraud under section 447 is where the proviso to section 76A routes a knowing or wilful contravention.
• Section 129 financial statements is where a company's net worth and turnover, the section 76(1) gating figures, are reported.
• What is a Form AOC-4 is the filing that carries those figures to the Registrar's record.

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.