Protection of investors the focus

By Our Economy Bureau | 30 Dec 2004

Chennai: Pursuing frauds and setting up a Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO) were the 2004 achievement highlights of the ministry of company affairs.

The SFIO was set up in the backdrop of major failures of non-banking financial companies, stock market scam and vanishing companies. The organisation has experts well versed in company law, chartered accountancy, corporate management, taxation, criminal investigation, economic offences, forensic auditing, banking and information technology. So far it has completed investigation in two out of the six cases of serious frauds by companies which were referred to it.

A monitoring committee on vanishing companies, jointly headed by the secretary, company affairs and chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The Ministry proposes to set up a ''national company law tribunal'' (NCLT) to streamline the liquidation proceedings of companies. Once in place, the proposed tribunal would facilitate liquidation of companies in a time-bound manner to protect the stakeholders.

According to the ministry, a concept paper to overhaul the Companies Act 1956 was circulated amongst corporates, regulatory bodies, stakeholders and others.