Rule 11UA's 'Registered Valuer' Is a 1957 Credential, Not a 2017 One
Rule 11UA names a 'registered valuer' as the professional who can certify a virtual digital asset's fair market value above a threshold, and it reads like an invitation to the Section 247 credential. Rule 11U's own definitions clause says otherwise. This piece works from the text of Rule 11U(g), the VDA provisions inserted by Finance Act 2022, and a search of ICAI's eight valuation standards, and reports one question the record leaves open.
Where the Word Shows Up
Finance Act 2022 inserted Section 2(47A) into the Income-tax Act, defining "virtual digital asset" broadly enough to include non-fungible tokens, and Section 115BBH, taxing its transfer at a flat 30 per cent. A dedicated valuation mechanism went into Rule 11UA alongside them:
- Invoice value governs where the VDA was bought from a registered dealer
- The assessee's own estimate of open market price governs otherwise
- Above a threshold of ₹50,000 the assessee may in addition obtain a report from "a registered valuer"
That third line is where the two credentials collide.
Rule 11U(g) Names the 1957 Credential Outright
The definitions clause governing Rule 11UA states it directly: "'registered valuer' shall have the same meaning as assigned to it in section 34AB of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957 (27 of 1957) read with rule 8A of Wealth-tax Rules, 1957."
Not the Companies Act credential. A separate, older one, created under a wealth-tax statute out of substantive force since 2015, still cross-referenced here to define who can sign this particular certificate. This practice's own history with the 2017 credential is covered in Why India Carved Out a Separate Profession Just for Valuation: before Section 247, valuation ran through a patchwork of sector-specific credentials, each statute naming its own qualified professional.
The Section 34AB valuer is exactly that kind of pre-2017 credential, never replaced, left standing wherever a later rule still points at it. FEMA's Rule 21 achieves the same result by omission, already covered in Cross-Border Share Pricing: Why FEMA Doesn't Recognise a Registered Valuer. Rule 11U(g) does it by exact phrase.
The Companies Act Framework Is Silent on VDAs Too
The silence is not one-sided. Checked directly against ICAI's Valuation Standards, the same document checked for "interest rate swap" in The SFA Asset Class Covers What an Entity Holds, Not Just What It Issues, the terms "virtual digital asset," "cryptocurrency," "crypto asset," "digital asset," and "NFT" appear nowhere across all eight standards. Neither the Companies Act, the Valuation Rules, nor Annexure IV names a VDA either.
No comprehensive VDA statute exists to fill the gap. Regulation runs through the Income-tax Act and Rules alone, and RBI and SEBI have yet to settle even the wider question of who should oversee VDAs at all.
One Question the Record Leaves Open
No IBBI regulation, circular, or reported NCLT or NCLAT order addressing how a corporate debtor's own VDA holdings would be valued in an insolvency proceeding was found in this research.
That is worth stating as a gap rather than an answer. It is not a settled silence like the interest rate swap point, where the framework has been asked and has stayed quiet. It is a question nobody has had to answer yet.
What This Means in Practice
Do not sign a Rule 11UA VDA report on the strength of an SFA licence. The rule that authorises the signature points to a 1957-vintage credential, one the 2017 regime never replaced and one the Section 247 register does not confer.
Whether the two credentials happen to sit with the same individual is a separate question from which one is doing the legal work. On the text, it is not the Companies Act one. The words are identical. The registers are not.