Govt may harmonise voluntary corp governance norms in Cos Bill

The government today said it will try to harmonise the voluntary corporate governance norms with the new Companies Act and is open to make the existing guidelines more effective.

"We are open to redoing and reevaluating the voluntary corporate governance code next year... We will (also) try to harmonise the code with the new Companies Act and other related law," Corporate Affairs Secretary R Bandyopadhyay said at Scope conference on corporate governance here.

He said the ministry is doing a follow-up of how much companies are complying with the voluntary guidelines introduced in December last year.

The code was drawn based on recommendations of the Naresh Chandra Committee, which was formed to suggest the government on a variety of corporate governance issues including the roles and responsibilities of independent directors, auditors, regulatory agencies, besides institutional investors and the press.

Earlier, Minister of Corporate Affairs Salman Khurshid had said the ministry is studying the possibility of modifying the proposed Companies Bill 2009 to the guidelines.

The guidelines contain proposals like a company should change audit partners every three years and firms every seven years, a fixed remuneration for directors, the limit on number of boards of independent directors can be on has been kept at seven and separation of the office of chairman and managing director.