Public, pvt firms need to follow secretarial standards: ICSI

Both public and private companies would have to follow the secretarial standards which became effective from July 1, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) today said.
"If any firm was found violating the secretarial standards norms, it would be subject to a penalty of Rs 25,000 and the concerned company secretary would have to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 per meeting attended," ICSI president Atul Mehta said.
"The secretarial standards have become effective from July 1 this year and both the public and private limited companies will have to comply with them," Mehta told reporters here.
He said that the companies would have to file an annual return on secretarial practices to be appended along with the director's report and also get the statutory secretarial audit done by a practising company secretary.

Mehta said that the standards have given more clarity on some aspects of the Company Law passed in 2013.
The role of independent directors have also become important as they have been identified as key managerial personnel (KMP) and there is a lot of liability put on them.
In India, there were 10 lakh companies, out of which nine lakh were private and the rest public, out of which around 7,100 were listed, he said.