To advocate the need, concept, scope of Secretarial Standards amongst corporates, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) recently organised a national seminar on Secretarial Standards in Noida.
During the seminar, the delegates discussed about Section 118(10) of the Companies Act, 2013 which mandates every company to observe Secretarial Standards with respect to general and board meetings specified by the ICSI and approved by the Central Government. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has accorded its approval to the Secretarial Standards on meetings of the board of directors and general meetings specified by the ICSI.
While addressing the august gathering, AK Chaturvedi, regional director (northern region), Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, appraised ICSI for being the only institution to have issued Secretarial Standards in the world so far. He said that these standards will boost the confidence of investors and will help the corporate world in achieving the Prime Minister’s initiative — Make in India in the current era of liberalisation and globalisation.
CS Pavan Kumar Vijay, former president, ICSI and chairman, Secretarial Standards Board, ICSI provided the overview of Secretarial Standards. He said that Secretarial Standards is a tool that would benefit the industry and the regulators and would help repose more confidence in the institutional investors about the adoption of robust board processes and systems in companies. All the active companies (except one person company) in India will now have to follow these standards.
CS Atul H Mehta, president, ICSI while address the gathering said that the Secretarial Standard on meetings of board of directors and Secretarial Standard on general meetings will be effective July 1, 2015 around 10 lakh active companies in India will have to comply with it to be fully compliant under Companies Act 2013. This would help in ease of doing business, improved governance ultimately leading to flow of capital in India, new projects, more modernisation and expansion.