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Clarification on holding of Annual General Meeting and NCLT has released the Standard Operating Procedure for Physical-Virtual- Hybrid hearing of cases

December 20, 2021

News from the desk of Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) 

  1. Clarification on holding of Annual General Meeting (AGM) through Video Conference (VC) or Other Audio Visual Means  (OAVM) :-

Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) had earlier issued General Circular No.  20/2020 dated 05.05.2020 and General Circular No. 02/2021 dated 13.01.2020 and General Circular No. 19/2021 dated 08th December, 2021 allowing extension of time for holding of AGM through VC or OAVM by Companies whose AGMs are due in the year of 2021, to conduct their AGM’s through VC or OAVM on or before 30th June, 2022. 

Upon receipt of queries seeking clarifications from Stakeholders, MCA vide its General Circular No. 21/2021 dated 14.12.2021 has allowed the Companies who are proposing to convene their AGMs in the Year 2022 for the financial year ended/ ending any time on or before 31.03.2022 through VC or OAVM as per the respective due dates by 30th June, 2022.

The Complete text of the General Circular may be viewed at below link:

https://bit.ly/32jfjxN

News from the desk of National Company Law Tribunal 

  1. NCLT has released the Standard Operating Procedure for Physical-Virtual- Hybrid hearing of cases before the National Company Law Tribunal, all Benches :-

In supersession of earlier notification/ guidelines/ circulars regarding the tribunal’s functioning during the Covid Pandemic, the NCLT has issued a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for physical as well as the continuation of virtual hearings. Keeping in view of the present situation and the Centre’s Covid guidelines, the tribunal has formed SOPs which are applicable to all NCLT Benches.

As per the updated SOPs, all the Tribunal benches will continue to receive online filing of cases through the e-portal of NCLT and the advocate, who opts to attend the hearing through Video Conference, may send a request with the item number to the concerned court officer. While appearing before the NCLT physically, all the stakeholders including the learned advocates shall follow this SOP scrupulously along with other instructions issued by this Tribunal, the State and Central governments directions issued from time to time including maintaining physical distancing, use of masks, sanitizers etc. The entry into the Tribunal premises only to the advocates/parties-in-person concerned, whose names are published in the cause list while the entry of parties or other stakeholders into the NCLT is permitted only if there is a direction by the Tribunal to that extent, and subject to the authorization given by the concerned advocate.

The entry into the Court Hall is only to the Counsel whose cases are listed in that particular Court. However, considering the physical distancing norms, the total number of advocates/parties-in-person in a case shall not exceed 6, 10 members. One Advocate per party will be allowed in each matter which is taken up for hearing by the bench and the other advocates/parties-in-person of the next two cases in the cause List will and permitted to remain in the Court Hall, but in all not exceeding ten numbers at a time. This restriction does not apply to Sr. Advocates who are appearing in the matter for either party. The chairs in the Court Halls and Bar rooms are arranged in such a way that a minimum advised the distance is maintained between the chairs. Entry into the NCLT premises by all the concerned shall be only between 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM on the working days so as to enable the sanitizing teams assigned for the purpose to carry out sanitization/deep cleaning of the premises according to the standard procedures in that behalf.

Further, Parties are required to ensure that the VC proceedings and neither recorded/stored nor broadcast, in any manner whatsoever, as recording/copying/ storing and or broadcasting, by any means, of the hearings and proceedings before the NCLT are expressly prohibited.

The Complete text of the General Circular may be viewed at below link:

https://bit.ly/3FeAlvY

Last updated: 20/12/2021

Article contributed by:

Bipasha Arora

MBG Corporate Services


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