Companies Amendment Bill, 2019 passed by Lok Sabha

New Delhi: The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2019 passed by Lok Sabha that seeks to plug gaps in the corporate governance and transfer of certain routine functions from National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to the central government.

Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the draft law will also ensure more accountability and better enforcement to strengthen the corporate governance norms.

Companies will be given a three year window in which they will have to steadily start spending their CSR money for their chosen CSR project and give a picture of where the money was spent in those three years.

The government had earlier said that as a result of the amendments brought in, in future, the compounding cases load on NCLT will also come down significantly. The existing cases will be withdrawn from special courts by bringing out an amnesty scheme as there are inherent benefits in prescribing civil liabilities for procedural lapses instead of undertaking a criminal trial.