The Corporate Affairs Ministry wants to introduce a new concept called the ‘knowledge test’ to find out if directors had previous knowledge of a company’s wrongful acts. As a first step, it would be ensured that the board processes are totally transparent. If it is found that the board papers had a mention of any wrongful act, and a director to whom the papers were circulated did not get his objections recorded in the minutes of the meeting, then he would be deemed to have colluded to commit that wrongful act.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) wants to shed its stern regulatory image and acquire a gentler, corporate-friendly reputation. The new mantra is to be a facilitator in corporate growth instead of just another regulator. The mantra is now being translated into action. For example, to cut out subjectivity in decisions, MCA has decided that field officers will not conduct any scrutiny of company balance sheets or send notices based on personal judgments or external tips.
The extra freedom given to the 26 public sector banks from this year to choose their statutory auditors has auditing companies — both those chosen and those left out — restive. They have approached the Union finance ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office to say that the decision will affect the quality of audits.
The government may retain profit as the key condition for levying minimum alternate tax (MAT) in the final draft of the direct taxes code after its asset-based approach proposed earlier ran into a storm of protests from industry. Other options being considered by the government include tax exemptions for asset-heavy infrastructure companies and start-ups, and a lower rate for MAT, a senior government official told.
On the action front, the CVC report reveals that on the basis of its recommendations, various competent authorities imposed major penalty in 47 cases in September, and 14 of them belong to the Railways. Merely one officer from CBDT figures in this list. However, since the past catches up with the present, the CBEC has granted sanctions for prosecution against 18 officers last month.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has decided to conduct a quarterly scrutiny of the end-use of funds raised through initial public offers (IPO). To this end, the ministry has directed all Registrar of Companies (RoC) to coordinate with the stock exchanges to access the quarterly balance sheets of all companies that have come out with IPOs in the recent past.
Several banks and housing finance companies have come under the scanner of the competition watchdog for imposing penalty on pre-payment of loans. The Competition Commission of India, according to a CCI official, is scrutinising a complaint concerning pre-payment penalty from a customer against major home loan players like HDFC, LIC Housing Finance and Deutsche Postbank.
The government will not sanction leave travel allowance for an employee who uses personal car or taxi as mode of transport.However, the rule shall not be applicable to employees with a handicap or disability of self or dependent family member. According to a government notification, the employees can avail the LTA only if they travel by Indian Railways or Air Indiaand state transport corporation buses.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd on Monday said it will offer new 3G prepaid connections for Rs 109 in its Mumbai circle.New subscribers can avail new ‘3G Tariff’, with local voice and video call charges at 20 paise per minute on own local network and 50 paise per minute for other local networks across Mumbai telecom circle with lifetime validity, MTNL said in a statement.
The Reserve Bank of India will soon issue guidelines on meeting provisioning rules and some banks have sought time to meet them, its deputy governor Shyamala Gopinath said on Friday. “Banks have made certain submissions to us in the policy, in terms of little more time. We are going to come up with guidelines soon,” Gopinath said.
