Relief for India Inc

Decriminalising some corporate offences is a wise move

The Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs, or MCA, has announced that a 10-member committee, headed by the ministry’s secretary, is being established to examine whether the penal provisions in the Companies Act, 2013, need reviewing. The ministry has explicitly said this is in order to decriminalise some offences that hitherto have attracted criminal charges. In other words, these offences would no longer require a trial in a criminal court but could be settled with the payment of a fine. It is argued that this would permit trial courts to concentrate on offences of a “more serious nature”. The committee, which