MCA’s Clarifications are making changes to legislation without Parliamentary oversight

MCA's latest circular on 'transitional period for resolutions passed Under the Companies Act, 1956’ adds to a long list of such clarifications that seem to be standing in for lawmaking

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs’ (MCA) new avatar as the lawmaker seems to be gaining ground by the day, as is their trend of bringing out more ‘clarification’ circulars. These circulars seem to rewrite the law of the land rather than just clarify it. The subject of the latest ‘clarification’ circular of the MCA, dated 23 July 2014, is ‘Clarification on transitional period for resolutions passed Under the Companies Act, 1956’.

This new Circular seeks to protect the validity of the resolutions passed under the erstwhile Companies Act, 1956 (‘Act of 1956’) which was under various stages of implementation at the time of commencement of the new Companies Act, 2013 (‘Act of 2013’). Since the stance in this regard...