The Institute of Company Secretaries in India (ICSI) recently issued Secretarial Standards on Meetings of the Board of Directors which prescribes a set of principles for convening and conducting Meetings of the Board of Directors, General meetings and the connected matters.
Shri. Arun Jaitley, Union Minister of Finance, Corporate Affairs and Defence, has officially unveiled the revised standards.
The Standard I is applicable to the Meetings of Board of Directors of all companies incorporated under the Act except One Person Company (OPC) in which there is only one Director on its Board and a company licensed under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 or corresponding provisions of any previous enactment.
The Standard II is applicable to all types of General Meetings of all companies incorporated under the Act except One Person Company (OPC) and a company licensed under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 or corresponding provisions of any previous enactment.
“However, Section 8 companies need to comply with the applicable provisions of the Act relating to Board Meetings”, the document said.
Further, the principles enunciated in the document are also applicable to Meetings of Committee(s) of the Board, unless otherwise stated herein or stipulated by any other applicable Guidelines, Rules or Regulations.
“Benchmarking standards of excellence in every sphere of corporate activities is the need of the day. Secretarial standard strengthen Board process and General Meetings, promote shareholders democracy, facilitate better interpretation of law, and compliments Corporate Governance”, said CS Dr. Shyam Agarwal, President, ICSI.
The above standards are applicable w.e.f 1st October 2017.
Read the full text of the Secretarial Standards below.
