A
little more than a half of the provisions of Companies Act, 2013 (Act) came
into force from 1st April 2014. Following this, several communications were
received in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs from bodies such as industry
associations, chambers of commerce and professional institutes drawing
attention to certain practical difficulties concerning these provisions or
seeking clarifications about the same. There was also an interactive session on
these issues with the stakeholders on 21st June 2014. Pursuant to this
Government have issued suitable circulars, statutory orders and amendments in
the Rules to provide transitional time, remove doubts or practical
difficulties. Amendments in the Act will be considered if measures out-lined
above prove inadequate. Specifically for the difficulties expressed regarding
communication of irregularities, embezzlements etc. to the Government through
auditors’ reports, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India has been
asked to give its comments on the feasibility of having some criteria to
determine the thresholds of the quantum of a fraud/suspected fraud for
mandatory reporting to the Government by the Auditors. Section 149(12) of the
Act already grants protection to Independent directors (IDs) from prosecution
in matters which had not occurred with their knowledge, consent, connivance or
where they had acted diligently.
This
was stated by Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, MoS in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs
in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.
0 comments:
Post a Comment