Govt may harmonise voluntary corp governance norms in Cos Bill

The Government on Wednesday said it will try to harmonise the voluntary corporate governance norms with the new Companies Act and is open to make the existing guidelines more effective.

New Delhi: The Government on Wednesday said it will
try to harmonise the voluntary corporate governance norms with
the new Companies Act and is open to make the existing
guidelines more effective.

"We are open to redoing and re-evaluating the voluntary
corporate governance code next year... We will (also) try to
harmonise the code with the new Companies Act and other
related law," Corporate Affairs Secretary R Bandyopadhyay said
at Scope conference on corporate governance here.

He said the ministry is doing a follow-up of how much
companies are complying with the voluntary guidelines
introduced in December last year.

The code was drawn based on recommendations of the
Naresh Chandra Committee, which was formed to suggest the
government on a variety of corporate governance issues
including the roles and responsibilities of independent
directors, auditors, regulatory agencies, besides
institutional investors and the press.

Earlier, Minister of Corporate Affairs Salman Khurshid
had said the ministry is studying the possibility of modifying
the proposed Companies Bill 2009 to the guidelines.

The guidelines contain proposals like a company should
change audit partners every three years and firms every seven
years, a fixed remuneration for directors, the limit on number
of boards of independent directors can be on has been kept at
seven and separation of the office of Chairman and Managing
Director.

PTI

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