Companies Bill withdrawal may delay dawn of new era

The Companies Bill, 2011, which seeks to replace the Companies Act, 1956, was cleared by the Union cabinet and tabled in the winter session of the parliament but was immediately withdrawn because of differences between the ruling coalition and the opposition parties.

The bill is much shorter than the present act. It is divided into 29 chapters and contains 470 clauses and seven schedules as against 658 sections and 15 schedules in the act.

New concepts

The bill has six new chapters which relate to: (1) registered valuers; (2) government companies; (3) companies for furnishing information or statistics; (4) Nidhi companies; (5) National Company Law Tribunal and Appellate Tribunal; (6) special courts.

Abhishake Sinha is a partner at Chitale & Chitale Partners, a full-service law firm based in New Delhi.