Huge relief to FCRA Pentities for late filing of returns

FCRA Dept has come out with a notification No. 1521 dt 16 June 2016 slashing compounding Fees for late filing of the return.
As per the new notification, following are the new slabs for the penalties.
S. No.	Offence	Penalty amount
1	Non-furnishing of Annual Return for 3 months after 31st December	2% of FC rec’d during the year or Rs 10,000whichever is less
2	Non-furnishing of Annual Return after 3 months but upto 6 months after 31stDecember	3% of FC rec’d during the year or Rs 50,000whichever is less
3	Non-furnishing of Annual Return after 6 months but upto one year after 31stDecember	4% of FC rec’d during the year or Rs 2 lakhwhichever is less
4	Non-furnishing of Annual Return after 1 year but upto 2 years after 31st December	5% of FC rec’d during the year or Rs 5 lakhwhichever is less
5	Non-furnishing of Annual Return after 2 year but upto 3 years after 31st December	10% of FC rec’d during the year or Rs 10 lakhwhichever is less
6
It may be noted that the major reduction in penalties is due to replacing of phrase ‘whichever is more’ to ‘whichever is less’. This will be a major relief as earlier penalty procedures were amounting to lakhs and lakhs of penalties, even forcing organizations to abandon their organisatons.
The notification also states that in all those cases, where penalties have already been imposed using the old rates, nothing can be done. Once again an arbitrary decision, not based on legal principles.