Companies Act has ruffled feathers; government will look into concerns: Nirmala Sitharaman

NEW DELHI: The government will look into concerns of stakeholders on the new Companies Act before deciding on whether the law needs an amendment, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman said today.

There are demands from various quarters seeking relaxations and possible changes in the Companies Act, 2013, many of whose provisions came into force from April 1.

"It (new Companies Act) has ruffled a lot of feathers.  ..It has caused a lot of anguish in different sectors of the corporate world...," 

The Minister has called for a meeting of various stakeholders on June 21 to discuss issues related to implementation of the Companies Act.

"I would wait for that (June) 21st deliberations to take place to decide as to where it is really going wrong and how far the problem has spread and does it require an amendment to the Act itself or is it possible to tweak here and there some rules to solve it," she said.

Noting that the new Act has led to "a lot of confusion", Sitharaman said there is a perception that it is too much of a management problem, a diligence problem and a reporting problem.

"It makes you administer it as though that itself is an industry and not the industry in which each one of them are engaged in. If that is the kind of administering, reporting mechanism which is imposed on people who are running the businesses, it is certainly not the best thing to happen to us and therefore it needs reform," Sitharaman said.