Companies Bill may bypass Naresh Chandra panel report

The Companies Amendment Bill, 2003, is likely to be passed in the Winter Session of Parliament without incorporating the recommendations of the second Naresh Chandra Committee report.

At a press conference today, MMK Sardana, secretary in the Department of Company Affairs, said the department was still in the process of collecting the views of industry and experts on the report.

The Centre is also expected to come out with the norms for Indian Depository Receipts soon. The guidelines had been sent to the law ministry for vetting, after which they would be notified, he said.

Sardana also said that the department would consider the possibility of outsourcing investigations for more companies, based on its experience with the quality of first two such probes on Modi Xerox and Flex Industries.

S K Jain & Company, appointed to probe bribery allegations against Modi Xerox in July last year, is yet to submit its report. In the case of Flex industries, the inspector has been granted more powers to complete the probe.

Sardana also said the Serious Frauds Investigation Office was ready to commence operations, and all investigators and advisors had been appointed.

He said the office would initially take up fresh cases already identified by the DCA and might go on to investigate those, which are pending with the department depending on whether they are eligible to be considered by the office.

Only those cases which have an element of fraud or involve large amount of shareholder's money would be taken up by the SFIO.

Sardana said the department's ambition of being a 'paperless office' through computerisation of its operations would be achieved by 2005. The expressions of interest would be issued in October itself.

He said the elaborate legislation involved in the Companies Act put a lot of burden on investigating officers, and computerisation would ease operations.