Institute of Company Secretary of India (ICSI) issues Secretarial Standards

Sec­tion 118(10) of the Com­pa­nies Act, 2013 man­dates com­pa­nies to observe Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards with respect to gen­er­al and Board Meet­ings spec­i­fied as such by the Insti­tute of Com­pa­ny Sec­re­taries of India. Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards apply to all com­pa­nies. One Per­son Com­pa­nies are excluded.

The Min­istry of Cor­po­rate Affairs has accord­ed its approval to the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards on Meet­ings of the Board of Direc­tors (SS‑1) and Gen­er­al Meet­ings (SS‑2) spec­i­fied by the Insti­tute of Com­pa­ny Sec­re­taries of India (ICSI).

The Insti­tute of Com­pa­ny Sec­re­taries of India today for­mal­ly launched the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards at New Del­hi today at the hands of Hon’ble Jus­tice Shri Vib­hu Bhakhru, Senior Judge, Del­hi High Court.

Hon’ble Jus­tice Sh. Dilip Raosa­heb Desh­mukh, Chair­man Com­pa­ny Law address­ing the gath­er­ing. On the Dias (from Left to Right): CS Vineet Chaud­hary, Coun­cil Mem­ber, The ICSI and Chair­man of the Cor­po­rate Laws and Gov­er­nance Com­mit­tee, CS Pavan K Vijay, Past Pres­i­dent, ICSI and Chair­man of the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards Board, CS Atul H Mehta, Pres­i­dent, ICSI, Hon’ble Jus­tice Shri Vib­hu Bhakhru, Senior Judge, Del­hi High Court, CS Mam­ta Binani, Vice-Pres­i­dent, ICSI, CS Sutanu Sin­ha, Chief Exec­u­tive & Offi­ci­at­ing Sec­re­tary

While address­ing the august gath­er­ing, Shri Bakhru, con­grat­u­lat­ed ICSI as pio­neer and only insti­tu­tion to have issued Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards in the world so far. He said that Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards issued by ICSI is a tool in fur­ther­ance of the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards would ben­e­fit the indus­try and the reg­u­la­tors and would help repose more con­fi­dence in the insti­tu­tion­al investors about the adop­tion of robust board process­es and sys­tems in companies.

Hon’ble Jus­tice Sh. Dilip Raosa­heb Desh­mukh, Chair­man Com­pa­ny Law Board graced the occa­sion as the guest of hon­our. He said that, It would def­i­nite­ly result in bet­ter cor­po­rate account­abil­i­ty and dis­clo­sures lead­ing to bet­ter val­ue enhance­ment to stake­hold­ers includ­ing share­hold­er, reg­u­la­tors and inter­na­tion­al investors.

Shri M. M. June­ja from the Min­istry of Cor­po­rate Affairs said that in the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards stan­dard prac­tices are artic­u­lat­ed, and com­pre­hen­sive­ly avail­able at one place, adher­ence to same by the cor­po­rate is great­ly eased, the stake­hold­ers are clear of what they should expect and what their rights are. The Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards would help in ease of doing busi­ness, improved gov­er­nance, con­fi­dence build­ing in minds of investors, improved com­pli­ance lev­el, ulti­mate­ly lead­ing to flow of cap­i­tal in India and achiev­ing the government’s objec­tive of make in India

CS Atul H Mehta, Pres­i­dent, ICSI expressed his grat­i­tude to the Min­istry of Cor­po­rate Affairs for accord­ing its approval under sec­tion 118(10) of the Com­pa­nies Act, 2013 to the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards (SS) name­ly, SS:1 Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dard on Meet­ings of Board of Direc­tors and SS:2 Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dard on Gen­er­al Meet­ings sub­mit­ted by the Insti­tute of Com­pa­ny Sec­re­taries of India and said that it is a his­tor­i­cal moment for the Insti­tute, since, The Insti­tute of Com­pa­ny Sec­re­taries of India is first insti­tu­tion to issue SECRETARIAL STANDARDS any­where in the world and that will be effec­tive July 1, 2015 around 8 lakh com­pa­nies in India will have to com­ply with these Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards to be ful­ly com­pli­ant under Com­pa­nies Act 2013.

Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards will cre­ate enor­mous con­fi­dence in minds of investors par­tic­u­lar­ly fund man­agers and over­seas investors as these investors are very much con­cerned about good gov­er­nance prac­tices and sound pro­ce­dures. Con­se­quent­ly, this will lead to more flow of cap­i­tal into India, new projects, more mod­ern­iza­tion and expansion.

CS Pavan K Vijay, Past Pres­i­dent, ICSI and Chair­man of the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards Board informed that The Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards are for­mu­lat­ed by the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards Board con­sti­tut­ed by the Coun­cil of the Insti­tute. It com­pris­es expe­ri­enced mem­bers of the CS pro­fes­sion, the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies such as the Min­istry of Cor­po­rate Affairs, Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Board of India, Reserve Bank of India, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tions and cham­bers such as CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM as well as the nom­i­nees of sis­ter pro­fes­sion­albod­ies, the Insti­tute of Char­tered Accoun­tants of India and the Insti­tute of Cost Accoun­tants of India. The man­date of the Com­pa­nies Act, 2013 with regard to the Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards can be attrib­uted to the fact that the Stan­dards have suf­fi­cient­ly evolved as these are being vol­un­tar­i­ly fol­lowed by fol­lowed companies.

CS Mam­ta Binani Vice-Pres­i­dent, ICSI, while talk­ing about the stake­hold­ers’ expec­ta­tions on the gov­er­nance issues such as trans­paren­cy dis­clo­sure, time­ly dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion, uni­for­mi­ty in prac­tices etc., said that Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dards would act as one of the bench­mark in stake­hold­ers’ assess­ment of companies.

CS Vineet Chaud­hary, Coun­cil mem­ber, The ICSI and Chair­man of the Cor­po­rate Laws and Gov­er­nance Com­mit­tee wel­comed the Chief Guest, Guest of Hon­our and others.

Down­load Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dard 1 on Board Meet­ings (SS‑1)

Down­load Sec­re­tar­i­al Stan­dard 2 on Gen­er­al Meet­ings (SS‑2)