Chennai based listed company having paid up capital less than Rs.5 crores taken a view that it does not require whole time company secretary in employment.
As per Section 383A, of Companies Act, 1956, there is no mandatory requirement of appointment of company secretary having paid up capital less than Rs 5 Crores .
Also to note that If the paid up capital is less than 3 crores Corporate Governance will not apply .
In India there are 6000 listed companies in various stock exchanges and many companies paid up capital is less than RS 5 crores and also companies having paid up less than 3 crores.
There are lot of regulatory requirements and Company secretary to act as a compliance officer .
Whether regulatory body i.e SEBI will exempt those companies which are not having paid up capital of Rs.5 crores?
Now recently SEBI has given permission to BSE and NSE to start SME exchanges, In general, SME even after raising share capital , the paid up capital will be less than Rs.5 crores in majority of the SME segment.
Will SEBI allow those companies not to employ whole time company secretary .
We need to have proper guidelines for appointment of company secretaries in listed entities.
SEBI should come out appointment mandatory appointment of company secretaries in listed entities considering large scale compliance procedures
Section 161 of the companies act speaks about listed company and one this section 161 applies to listed company , why not we have Section 383A of the Companies Act, 1956.
Section 161 of the Companies Act, 1956
1) The copy of the annual return filed with the Registrar under section 159 or 160, as the case may be, shall be signed both by a director and by the 1[***] manager or secretary of the company, or where there is no 1[***] manager or secretary, by two directors of the company, one of whom shall be the managing director where there is one:
2) Provided that where the annual return is filed by a company whose shares are listed on a recognized stock exchange, the copy of such annual return shall also be signed by a secretary in whole-time practice.
Will Companies bill 2011 resolve the anomalies?
It is debatable point.
Best regards
CAclubindia
