Year End Review
The Ministry of Company Affairs strived to protect the investors’ interest. It issued a concept paper on overhauling the Companies Act, 1956. The document was circulated among the corporate and regulatory bodies, stakeholders and autonomous professional institutions. The concept paper was publicised through the media to create public awareness and their involvement in the exercise to enable the government bring about a new-look companies bill to meet the requirements of all concerned.
The Ministry set up a Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO) in the backdrop of major failures of non-banking financial institutions, vanishing companies and the stock market scam. The organisation has experts well-versed in company law, chartered accountancy, corporate management, taxation, criminal investigation, economic offences, forensic auditing, banking and information technology. So far it has completed investigation in two out of the six cases of serious frauds by companies which were referred to it.
The Ministry actively pursued cases relating to the vanishing companies. SEBI, RBI and other concerned agencies were involved. It set up a monitoring committee on vanishing companies, jointly headed by the Ministry’s Secretary and SEBI Chairman. The Ministry proposes to set up a National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to streamline the liquidation proceedings of companies. Once in place, the proposed Tribunal would facilitate liquidation of companies in a time-bound manner to protect the stakeholders.
(Release ID :6111)