MAJOR HIGHLIGHTS OF THE COMPANIES (AMENDMENT) ACT, 2020
The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Minister for Corporate Affairs, Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, on March 17, 2020. The Bill seeks to amend the Companies Act, 2013. It was passed by Lok Sabha on 19th September 2020 and passed further by Rajya Sabha on 22nd September 2020 and received the assent from President on 28th September, 2020 . The CAB, 2020 has been based on the Company Law Committee (“CLC/Committee”) which was set up under the Chairmanship of Shri Injeti Srinivas in September, 2019. The CLC was constituted with a view to decriminalize offences and provide ease of doing business to the corporates and other stakeholders. The Committee presented its Report 2 in November, 2019 which provided for de-clogging 46 penal provisions in the following manner: •Re-categorising of 23 offences out of 66 compoundable offences to an in-house adjudication framework wherein penalty will be levied by an ad