[Suraj Chaudhary and Ravishekhar Pandey are practising advocates at the Bombay High Court, and specialise in commercial disputes] Netflix’s Railway Men this November has refreshed the public memory of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984. In March this year, given its limited curative jurisdiction, the Supreme Court had no choice but to reject the application for enhancement of compensation to the...
A Bank’s Post-Merger Liability for Pre-Merger Crimes
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court in Religare Finvest Limited v. State of NCT of Delhi (2023INSC819) considered the question whether the transferee bank in a merger can be fastened with corporate criminal liability for offences committed by the officials of the transferor bank prior to a merger of the two entities. The Court answered in the negative given the specific facts and circumstances...
Liability of Authorized Signatory of a Company to Pay Interim Compensation Under the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881
[Khush Bhachawat is a III year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] The Bombay High Court (“HC”) recently held that authorised signatory of a company who signs a cheque on its behalf is not a ‘drawer’ of the cheque and hence is not liable to pay interim compensation under section 143A of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (“NI Act”) in a case of...
IBC vis-à-vis PMLA: Does Section 32A Resolve the Question of Primacy?
[Manisha Arora is a 3rd year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University, Visakhapatnam] The absence of definitive jurisprudence on the interplay of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (“PMLA”) has resulted in the uncertainty in their enforcement. While the IBC ensures the management of operations of a...
Caught between PMLA and IBC: The Bhushan Power-JSW Saga
[Aniket Aggarwal is a commercial litigator and technology lawyer practicing in New Delhi] A prima facie look at the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 [“PMLA” or “the Act”] and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 [“IBC” or “the Code”] belies exclusivity and distinctness between the legislations. Indeed, the Delhi High Court observed these laws to be consistent with each other in light...
Decriminalisation of Section 138: A Half-Baked Remedy
[Srihari Gopal and Vedant Malpani are fifth year students at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] On June 8, 2020, the Ministry of Finance released a notification inviting comments on a proposal to decriminalise 39 minor offences. The proposal comes in a long line of measures initiated by the government to revive businesses and ‘unburden’ the courts in light of the Covid-19 related...
Disgorgement by SEBI under Section 32A of IBC: Death-Knell for Insolvency Resolution?
[Rongeet Poddar is a graduate of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences & Vishal Hablani is a final year student at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences] The Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) has released a ‘Report on the Measures for Strengthening the Enforcement Mechanism of the Board and Incidental Issues’ on 16 June 2020. The Report has...
Decriminalization of Minor Economic Offences: A Step in the Right Direction?
[Pratik Sahai and Manjri Singh are IV year students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] Amidst the economic slowdown as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an intention on the part of the Government to bring about much-awaited reforms to the corporate regulatory regime. The Ministry of Finance released a proposal on decriminalization of minor economic offences on 8 June 2020, and...
MCA Clarifies on Legal Actions against Outside Directors
Recognizing the specific roles that different directors of a company play, section 149(12) of the Companies Act, 2013 contains a safe harbour provision that protects certain types of directors against liability. It relates to three types of directors, who are, for the sake of convenience, referred to as “outside” directors: (i) an independent director; (ii) a non-executive director who is not a...
Decriminalisation of Company Law: A Welcome Change
[Arun Kumar is a 4th-year student of NLIU Bhopal] The Company Law Committee (CLC) in its November 2019 report (CLC Report) to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has recommended amendments to 46 penal provisions in the Companies Act, 2013 (CA, 2013). This is in addition to the 16 offences already decriminalised by the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA, 2019). India is making rapid strides...
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