'CS services to be reviewed'

IN CONVERSATION

"In times to come, company secretaries will be at the forefront of national fiscal matters," says Preeti Malhotra, president, Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI).

As she completes her tenure this month, Malhotra tells Rayana Pandey about the factors that will lead to a boom in this profession.

What was the reason for a change in the syllabus?

It was necessary to make the syllabus compatible with changing corporate paradigm. It was done to give a comprehensive shape to the syllabus, without compromising on the quality.

The new syllabus focuses on financial management, compliance management, corporate governance, sustainability and ethics. It comprises four papers at the foundation programme level, six at the executive programme level and eight at the professional programme level.

What will be the mandate of the newly set up quality review board?

The quality of services provided by company secretaries will be reviewed by this board, formed under the amended Company Secretaries Act, 2006.

It would ensure that practising company secretaries maintain stipulated standards and do not engage in unethical practices, like giving wrong certification. Also, it would take care of the changing needs of the profession.

Why are you seeking a name change of the institute?

In the changing international context, our members are destined to play a much larger role in public practice as well as in service.

The executive council of the institute decided that to reflect the ICSI's changing agenda and image, it should change its name to "The Institute of Chartered Secretaries of India".

This will also eliminate the dichotomy between its brand name "chartered secretary" propagated through its corporate journal and its formal name The Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

A number of states have authorised company secretaries to appear before the value-added tax (VAT) authorities. What does it imply for the profession?

Practising company secretaries will gain a major tax service advantage in the years to come because of their expertise in VAT and later on in the goods and services tax.

The state-level VAT is an intermediate step to initiate reform at the national-level goods and services tax (GST). Company secretaries are already appearing before tax authorities in Customs, Excise and service tax-related matters.

When state-level taxes integrate with the national-level GST, company secretaries will already be at the forefront in national fiscal matters.

How do you think can company secretaries specialise in Competition Law and its compliance?

Competition Law will replace the entire Monopolistic and Restrictive Trade Practice spectrum in the years to come with a focus on promotion of competition. Company secretaries will need to specialise in competition matters.

Further, since they already specialise in mergers and joint ventures they will be able to collate appropriate industrial, market and competition data in various economies.

What progress has the International Federation of Company Secretaries (IFCS) made?

The IFCS, founded by company secretaries institutes in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Pakistan in 2004, has decided to follow the secretarial standards developed by the ICSI and set up a group for formulating international corporate secretarial standards.