•Subhomoy Bhattacharjee: Tell us about the new Companies Bill that you have worked on and any other major initiatives you’ve taken.

Premchand Gupta: In a changed global scenario, unless we encourage our corporate sector we cannot create new jobs and wealth; unless we provide a level playing field for them to grow, we will not have jobs for our youth. We are a young nation, with millions of trained, untrained youth looking for jobs every year. So the first thing we did was to make a revision of the Companies Act. The present Act was enacted in 1956. It was amended 25 times. We realised we need a comprehensive new Companies Act. For that, I initiated a consultative process. I decided to appoint a committee headed by Dr. JJ Irani. I didn’t have any government representative on this committee except for representatives from the Reserve Bank of India which is mandatory. Based on the recommendations, I introduced a new bill in Parliament during the winter session.

This new Companies Bill is a very good piece of legislation once it is approved. It is a simplified Companies Bill; if any adjustment is required then it can be done through notification. In the current Act, there are limitations and for every small thing one has to go to Parliament for approval. We have also decided there will be no limitation in the number of partners in the partnership firms. So the new Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) Bill was cleared by Parliament. Now there can be multifarious activities under the LLP umbrella. Chartered accountants, company secretaries, lawyers, cost accountants and others can all come together as partners. The present system doesn’t permit a chartered accountant to have a company secretary as a partner.

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