MCA constituted Committee to review the offences under the Companies Act, 2013

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has constituted a 10 Member Committee, headed by the Secretary of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, for review of the penal provisions in the Companies Act, 2013 may be setup to examine ‘de-criminalisation’ of certain offences.

The MCA seeks to review offences under the Companies Act, 2013 as some of the offences may be required to be decriminalised and handled in an in-house mechanism, where a penalty could be levied in instances of default. This would also allow the trial courts to pay more attention on offences of serious nature. Consequently, it has been decided that the existing compoundable offences in the Companies Act - 2013 viz. offences punishable with fine only or punishable with fine or imprisonment or both may be examined and a decision may be taken as to whether any of such offences may be considered as ‘civil wrongs’ or ‘defaults’ where a penalty by an adjudicating officer may be imposed in the first place and only consequent to further non-compliance of the order of such authority will it be categorised as an offence triable by a special court.

The Committee’s constitution, under the Chairmanship of Secretary, is the following:

(1)	Secretary,  Ministry of Corporate Affairs	Chairperson
(2)	Shri T.K. Vishwanathan, Former Secretary General Lok Sabha and Chairman, BLRC	Member
(3)	Shri Uday Kotak, MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank	Member
(4)	Shri Shardul S Shroff, Executive  Chairman, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.	Member
(5)	Shri Ajay Bahl, Founder Managing Partner, AZB & Partners	Member
(6)	Shri Amarjit Chopra, Senior Partner, GSA Associate	Member
(7)	Shri Arghya Sengupta, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy	Member
(8)	Shri Sidharth Birla, Former President, FICCI	Member
(9)	Ms. Preeti Malhotra, Partner and Executive Director of Smart Group	Member
(10)	Joint Secretary (Policy), Ministry of Corporate Affairs	Member-Secretary

- PIB