Month: December 2020

ABOUT CORPORATE LAW BOARD:

The Corporate Law Board is an autonomous board of All India Legal Forum. It is an initiative to engage a discussion around corporate law and policy in India and across the globe. The Board adopts a cross jurisdictional and multi-disciplinary approach in analysing the various corporate law issues, regulatory framework and policy obligations. The Board aims to critically overlook the various corporate law enactments and the objectives that such
enactments propose.

PEOPLE BEHIND ALL INDIA LEGAL FORUM:

All India Legal Forum is a team of more than 800 law students across the country to tackle basic problems which a legal researcher faces in day to day life. We are pleased to have the support of a diverse group of eminent personalities, comprising: Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri, Justice Mukundakam Sharma, Justice Bellur Srikrishna, Justice S.L. Bhayana, Justice Amarnath Jindal, Dr.Vinod Surana, CEO and Partner, Surana and Surana International
Attorneys, Mr. Ajit Prakash Shah, Former Chairman, 20 th Law Commission of India, Mr. Rishabh Gupta, Partner, Shardul Amarchand and Mangal Das, Mr. M S Bharath, Senior Partner, Anand and Anand Associates, Mr. Safir Anand, Senior Partner, Anand and Anand Associates, Mr. JLN Murthy and many more as our honorary board members.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

• The Corporate Law Board accepts submissions on a rolling basis on corporate law, securities law, insolvency law, banking law, commercial, competition law and taxation law etc.
• Submissions can be in the form of articles, opinions, case comments and short notes on the aforementioned topics.
• Submissions for the blog shall be reviewed on a rolling basis.
• Submissions must be original. By submitting an article, the author undertakes that it has not been submitted, accepted, or published elsewhere.
• Authors are advised to keep their articles concise and precise to enhance the effectiveness of their posts, ideally not more than 1500 words excluding footnotes.
• Authors are advised to make succinct, initial paragraphs to summarize the substance of their posts.
• The font size should be Times New Roman 12 for the body, TNR 14 for headings with 1.5 line spacing for the text in the body. The footnotes should be TNR 10 with single spacing.
• All relevant sources must be given proper referencing. The mode of citation to be followed is OSCOLA.
• Submissions must be in Word Format (.doc or .docx).
• The maximum number of co-authors permitted is two.
• Please ensure that the title of the submission is not more than eight words long.
• Authors must include their full name and institution/organization name in the separate cover letter and submit their Blog at (ailf12345corporate@gmail.com) with the subject line- ‘AILF Corporate law Blog Submission’.
• The Corporate Law Board solely reserves the right to accept or reject the submission after a due and rigorous editorial review.
• Any non-compliance with the above-mentioned guidelines shall result in a breach. Thus, leading to the rejection of the submission.
• The author will be communicated about the acceptance or the rejection of his/her submission within 2-3 weeks of submitting the blog via email.
• Non-adherence to the above-mentioned guidelines will lead to a direct rejection of the article.
• If submission of author is accepted, then it will be notified via email once we have uploaded it to our Blog website and certificate of publication will be issued to the author.
  

ENTRY FEE:

No entry fee will be charged. Submissions are free of cost on rolling basis. One person can submit as many articles as one wish and as frequently as one wishes to.

DEADLINE:

There is no deadline for submissions, however early submissions would be appreciated. We are currently accepting submissions on a rolling basis.

PERKS:

• An e-certificate would be awarded to the authors whose blogs are published along with blog link.
• Top 3 reads will get a shout-out from all our social media handles.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

Submissions should be mailed to ailf12345corporate@gmail.com [cc to:
akaraayush@gmail.com] in .doc format, with the subject of the mail as “Submission of Blog for Corporate Law Board, AILF”. Kindly go through the submission guidelines before submitting your blog.

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Organizer:  S. Bhambri & Associates (Advocates), Delhi.

About the Firm: Our multidimensional law office, was a brainchild of our senior-most associate and partner, Mr N.K Bhambri, we believe in providing straight cut solutions to our client’s legal problems. We endevour to coordinate with our associates as well as with our paralegal staff and interns to assist our clients and provide them with maximum satisfaction out of our services. Our Managing Partner Ms Sofia Bhambri, has been a pillar to our firm and provides with empathetic viable solutions to our female clients, who are in extreme distress due to familial issues and who seek a legal way out. Our paralegal staff is equipped with qualifications to assist our lawyers and engage in legal research. Apart from our lawyers, paralegal staff we associate law interns, with us every month.  Our firm deals with legal cases pertaining to Delhi High Court, Punjab & Haryana High Court, District Courts as well as Debt Recovery Tribunal, Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Consumer Courts, Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

Details of the Online Internship Oppurtunity:

For the month of January, 2021

Eligibility:

Only Undergraduate Law Students pursuing Three Year LLB or five year Law Course are eligible to apply. Selected candidates will be intimated through email only.

Registration:

Interested Candidates may send their CV and cover letter at sofiabhambri@gmail.com

Perks:

1. Certificate of Internship upon successful completion of tasks.
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3. Future Referrals
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5. Best Intern of the Month Award.

Location:

Briefing would be done on Google meet for the selected candidates

Deadline:

28^th December, 2020.

About LicitElite

LicitElite, focuses on providing assistance to Law students in self-grooming while acquiring better knowledge, by generating an exclusive learning platform through activities like law classes, blog writing, competitions etc. It also aims to connect with legal experts to design better learning opportunities.

Keynote Speaker

 Ms Manini Syali– Assistant Professor (Visiting) at Gautam Buddha University. – Pursuing PhD from GGS Indraprastha University,  Delhi.

How to apply:

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Transfer petitions had been filed for transferring various writ petitions which have been pending in the High Courts of Madras, Calcutta and Kerala. The writ petitions asking to be transferred were seeking the validity of Chapter VI of the Guidelines No.1- CA(7)/02/2008 dated 08.08.2008 issued by the Council of  Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. The aforesaid guideline was said to be violating Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution of India. 

“Article 19 (1) (g) guarantees to all citizens the right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. This freedom is not uncontrolled, for clause (6) of Article 19 authorises legislation which imposes reasonable restrictions on this right in the interest of the general public.”

Chapter VI of the Guidelines actually hold that any member of the institute who is in practice is not allowed to accept in a financial year more than the specified number of tax audit assignments. According to the Income Tax Act of 1961 Section 44AB, the number at present is 60. Also, Section 22 of the Chartered Accountants act of 1949 defines that professional or other misconduct shall include any act or omission which is provided in any of the Schedules to the  Act. Thus Clause 1 of Part II of the Second Schedule to the Act holds that a member of the Institute who is in practice shall be deemed to be guilty of professional misconduct If the individual contravened any of the provisions of the act or the regulations which were made under its guidelines issued by the council of the Institute. Hence if an Institute member contravened the provisions provided in Chapter VI of the Guidelines dated 08.08.2008 would be deemed to be guilty of professional misconduct under the Chartered Accountants Act of 1949.

After the issuance of the guidelines which was dated 08.08.2008. several writ petition has been filed by aggrieved parties in different high courts details of which had been provided in the judgment.

The contention was that the transfer of the writ petitions be allowed as this would help avoid the multiplicity of proceedings, conflicts of decision and also settle the law which was of public importance dealing with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India which was the regulatory body governing chartered accountants in India. 

However opposing counsel was of the view that there was no such convenience that would be availed by such transfer except the fact that it would avail the convenience of the petitioners and in fact, it would take way the right guaranteed under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution. They also contended that Article 139A of the Constitution is an exception to be exercised only in rare and exceptional circumstances.

Article 139A of the Constitution of India deals with the transfer of certain cases and provides for consideration of the matter by the Supreme Court of India as well as transferring of cases from one High Court to another.

The respondent took precedence from the judgment passed by the Court in, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India versus Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation Ltd and Anr (2007) 15 SCC 649 where the court had directed all the writ petitions to  Calcutta High Court. They were of the opinion that even in the present case the court should consider transferring all the writ petition to anyone High Court instead.

• THE SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT 

The Supreme Court however through its 3 judges Bench however held that its judgment in a previous case does not preclude the consideration of the prayer of the petitioner asking for transferring the writ petition to the Supreme Court. Since the issue was a matter of public importance affecting Chartered Accountants as well as the citizens who have to obtain compulsory tax audits they were satisfied to settle the law and to clear the uncertainty among the professionals dealing in tax and the citizens that it was appropriate that the Supreme Court should transfer the writ petition to pronounce the law on the subject in an authoritative manner.

It was therefore decided that the registry should transmit the order to all the respective High courts immediately as the writ petitions mentioned would be withdrawn to the Supreme Court now however the interim orders passed in the writ petitions being transferred to the Supreme Court would continue till any other order is passed by the Supreme Court.

Report By-Alifya

1. Accenture India

Accenture India is looking to hire for the job post of Associate for Domestic Language

Job Description

Skill required: Domestic Language – Hindi

Designation: Management Level – New Associate

Job Location: Mumbai

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Years of Experience: 0-1 years

Location:

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How to apply?

Interested please click on the link given below

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2.Paypal India

PayPal India is inviting applications for the job post of Sanctions Investigator for its office in Chennai.

Employee Type:
Full-Time

Location:
Chennai

Job Type:
Compliance Investigations

Experience:
Not Specified

How to apply?

Interested please click on the link given below

https://jobsearch.paypal-corp.com/en-US/job/sanctions-investigator/J3Q31R76L9PVW2GQPLP

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Azim Premji Foundation invites applications for the Job Post of Teacher Educator in Uttarakhand to work for them.

About the Foundation

Azim Premji Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that has been working since 2000 with the elementary education system in rural government schools. The Foundation
began by implementing various programs to improve educational quality across the Country.

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• Graduation or Post graduation with a minimum of 2 years of teaching experience.
• Candidates with substantial on-field experience in education NGOs may also apply
• Willingness to travel within the district/state

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The Parliament put an end to all the speculations as it announced that there will be no Winter session for the Parliament due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic. All political parties have favoured the scrapping down of the session in order to curb Covid spread and would straight away be jumping to the Budget session that takes place in January as per the information received by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi. 

The news was confirmed through the means of a letter on Monday which was in response to Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary’s demand for a session so that the new farm laws could be discussed owing to its controversial nature as the massive farmer protests have taken over the highways near Delhi. Stress was laid on the need to amend these laws that have been forced through Parliament by the government. 

The justification provided in the letter for not holding the Winter session of the Parliament was said to be in support of the cases of coronavirus which have seen an increase in the winter months and therefore it was crucial to take steps in order to manage the pandemic.

“It would be appropriate to have the Budget Session, 2021 in January, keeping in mind the unprecedented circumstances created by COVID-19 pandemic (sic),” the letter said.

It was decided that since it was the middle of December and the vaccine is supposedly going to come very soon thus all the floor leaders of various political parties were expressing concerns over the increase of the pandemic and they were of the consensus that the Parliament should do away with the Pandemic. 

However, since the Parliament will be now meeting for its Budget session in 2021 which is expected to be held in the last week of January before the budget is announced on the first of February. 

The decision to scrap down the winter session also came forth after the Monsoon Session had to be cut down because many members of Parliament had contracted the Coronavirus disease. Since a large figure of the parliamentarians is elderly it naturally made them more prone to the coronavirus and this is also one of the reasons that had to be considered.

Was The Congress not consulted in making the decision? 

Though the Parliamentary Affairs Minister made it clear through a letter to the Congress that all political parties were in favour of not holding a winter session in order to avoid further Covid spread and would directly beholding the budget session in January however Congress has said that it was never consulted in the first place

Does the scrapping down of the Winter Session have anything to do with the controversial farm laws? 

The monsoon session was held in September after a long delay yet was considered to be one of the most productive sessions as there were 27 bills that were passed in the continuous sittings that were held by the parliament. 3 farm laws which have sparked the current protests were also passed during this session and though the justification given by Parliament for scrapping down the winter session was to curb the spread of the virus however in the opinion of Congress’s Lok Sabha leader Mr Chaudhary the letter addressed to him was actually a way of the government to get away with the mess that has been caused because of the current farmer protests.

Another senior Congress leader Mr Ramesh also tweeted that the government was actually “departing from the truth” and the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Congress Member Ghulam Nabi Azad had actually not been consulted before taking the decision of scrapping down the winter session this year.

Several Congress leaders have demanded that a session be held in the Parliament with necessary precautions at the earliest because they were various concerning issues involving the country that needed to be discussed with included the economy, the situation with China as well as the farmer protests.

Since 17 members of the Lok Sabha and 8 members of the Rajya Sabha had tested positive before the session started and many other members of Parliament who had tested negative initially later contracted the virus during the monsoon session is the reason why the Parliament was of the opinion that it was best to do away with the winter session for this year.

Not being able to hold the winter session owing to the pandemic situation in a time when there is a lot happening in the country that needs to be discussed and addressed can definitely be termed as a crisis that the country is dealing with due to the Covid-19.

Report By- Alifya

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 This article is written by T.PREETHI, student of government law college, Tirunelveli. This describes the concept of socio economic crimes and its nature and the extent of it. It also tells about the types and causes of the crime.

INTRODUCTION

The concepts of crime or offences are prevailing in this society for a notably long period. The link between crimes and currency has been in existence since ages. The idea of crimes being caused by poverty, psychopathic deviations, slum neighboring and miserable family conditions have been proved wrong with the new theories. Now a day the most powerful groups secured immunity by the benefit of business or profession.   

What are Offences?

Offences in general are illegal actions that results when someone breaches the law. It is classified into two major categories.

• Conventional offence and
• Non conventional offence

• Conventional offences can be described as offences that do have mens rea. For example: murder, theft, rape etc. while;
• An unconventional offence doesn’t have any mens rea (guilty intentions). For example: white collar crimes, socio economic offences, organized crimes.

All the traditional or conventional crimes are more common and are dealt with the general laws of crimes. But the case with socio economic crimes are different, the name itself suggest that, it’s a combination of social and economic crimes.

Social crimes are crimes that affect the health and the morals of the public and economic crimes are offences that affect the economy of a country. They are dealt with special laws of crimes.

Socio Economic Crimes/ Offences

The criminal acts with the benefits of business or profession is referred as socio economic offences. When an offence is committed by highly influential and might people of the society it is referred as white color crimes. These offences bring traumatic threat to the survival of social order. These crimes go against the economy and interest and are also committed with no guilty intentions where the offender tries to increase his personal gain regardless of the consequences of the society. They are dealt with special laws of crimes in order to tackle the problem, it became acute and then chronic. In this the concept of mens rea was diluted, said to be minimal or declared as nonexistent. 

Fatures

Motive

The motivation of the criminal is basically acquisitiveness or mercenary.

Background 

Unlike the conventional crimes, these crimes don’t have any emotional grounds. There isn’t any emotional reaction between the offender and the victim.

Mode of operation

What the offender does is considered as a fraud and not force

Knowledge

These crimes are committed intentionally and willfully

Interest protected in two fold

• Social interest in the preservation of

1. The property, wealth or health of individuals and national resources.
2. The economy as a whole

• Social interest in augmentation of the resource of the country by enforcing laws, relating to taxes, duties, foreign exchanges, foreign commerce, industries etc

The most cardinal feature is that, these offences don’t have a direct individual victim, rather a whole society. The element of immediate and direct impact, is absent in these types of offences.

Offences under Socio Economic Offences

Following are the offences that are classed as socio economic offences.

• Any act that prevent the growth of the country and jeopardize the economic health
• Public servants misusing their positions
• Evasions or circumvention of taxes
• Breaching of contracts where, the output results in delivery of goods against specifications.
• Black marketing and cacheing
• Adulterating food and drugs
• Thieving and misappropriation of public properties and funds
• Trafficking in matters of licenses, permits etc

Many a times the term “white collar crimes” is used as synonym for socio economic offences, but socio economic offences are much more than that. White collar crimes are also a part of socio economic offences where they are categorized as a separate criminal offence under the tag “crime by upper class of the society”.

A big corporate guilty for fraudulent tax evasion and a workmen submitting false returns of income are not different. In the end either of the acts obstructs the economic growth of the country, but the former one is classified as white collar crimes because of it status.

Roots of Socio Economic Offences

Following are some of the reasons for the rise of socio economic offences

• Industrial revolution

When the economies evolved from agricultural based countries to industry based, that’s when the crimes did evolve largely from conventional ones to non conventional ones.

• World war 2

Post war, the conditions of most of the countries were miserable and people started adapting to the change in the working of the society considering it as a new normal, which paved way for the emergence of the new offences.

• Businesses

As the economies were in the industrialization phase, new businesses came up, the extreme competitive edge between the business to surpass the other and stay in the first or top made every one desire to adapt to any mean, which will fulfill their need.

Laws Dealing with Socio Economic Offences

To conduct a penal proceeding on the criminal “n” number of acts were framed. These acts also give direction for channelizing activities of trade, commerce, contracts etc.

1. The central excises and salt act,1944
2. The foreign exchange regulation act,1947
3. The prevention of food adulteration act,1954
4. The essential commodities act,1955
5. The wealth tax act, 1957
6. The income tax act,1961
7. The custom act,1962
8. The gold control act,1968

Other relevant acts are

• Imports and exports (control) act,1947
• The drugs act
• CrPC
• IPC
• The passport act
• The criminal law amendment act,1952

Current Scenario

With increasing technological advancement and development, there is an increase in advanced malpractices. These practices have advanced in proportion to the advancement and development in the present state. The awareness that people has on conventional crimes and the urge to eradicate them is lacking when it comes to un-conventional crimes.

This lack of awareness set the scene for socio-economic crimes to slowly feed on the resources. A collective effort and proper awareness will only help in preventing the offences. Moreover the role of legislative and judiciary is also important. It should more actively involved in addressing socio economic crimes. In that way also they can spread awareness among the people about the offences of this nature. Judiciary should be more careful in using legal principles, policies and precedents while dealing with these types of crimes.

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In a petition filed before the Orissa High Court regarding the circulation of offensive videos on social media websites or applications. The Habeas Corpus petition was filed by the father of the girl. The girl (the petitioner here) who was being harassed by one of the respondents circulating some of her offensive videos on social media had been rescued. 

The petitioner has mentioned in her application that she had filed an FIR before the inspector at the Jagatpur Police Station, Cuttak, but it still was not registered and neither any action was taken against the accused. In a similar case adjudged by the single bench of Justice SK Panigarhi, the court noted that the petitioner was on the receiving end of abuse and unabated mental torture, and thus rejected the bail application of the accused. 

The court directed the police to take cognizance of the matter as soon as possible and examine the FIR. And look if the case has not already been registered. If it is, then take up further investigations and raid the house of the accused is required. 

The court in its observations also noted that young people especially women are usually on the receiving end of the of harmful abuses and torture and any accused would secretively outrage the modesty of the woman concerned if the right to be forgotten is not recognised sooner. 

Report By- Tanuj

Hina-Haneefa, a trans-woman files an affidavit in the Kerela High court, raising her voice against  Section 6 of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) 1948 Act which allows only males and females to enrol with the Corps.

WHAT IS CONTENTIOUS IN SECTION 6 OF NCC ACT?

This acts provides for the composition of a National Cadet Corps, which comes under the Ministry of Defence. 

Section 6 of the same lays out the enrolment criteria which are as follows:

Enrolment.—(1) Any student of the male sex of any university may offer himself for enrolment as a cadet in the Senior Division, and any student of the male sex of any school may offer himself for enrolment as a cadet in the Junior Division if he is of the prescribed age or over.

 (2) Any student of the female sex of any University or school may offer herself for enrolment as a cadet in the Girls Division: Provided that in the latter case she is of the prescribed age or over

Pertinently,  the act talks about the enrolment of only boys and girls, what is not to be ignored is the fact that this act came into existence in 1948, and the awareness regarding trans-genders identification as the third-gender and their rights came in somewhat later years, In the latest judgement, Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India section 377 was classified as unconstitutional.

BACKGROUND

Hina-Haneefa, A student of Thiruvananthapuram University College, had gone threw two sex reassignment surgeries and procured a transgender identity card under the Kerala government’s Transgender Policy, 2015

She challenged NCC’s exclusion of transgender people from its programme in the college as she wanted to join NCC.

THE SUBMISSIONS MADE IN RESPONSE 

Kochi: In their submissions, The National Cadet Corps (NCC) informed the Kerala High Court that due to lack of any provision the transgender people cannot be allowed into NCC.

As per the existing policy, The divisions created in NCC as of now were only for girls and boys cadets, the NCC said.

The Central government told the Kerala High Court that

“There is no provision in the law allowing entry of Transgender persons to Armed Forces and National Cadet Corps (NCC) and it is the prerogative of the Central government to decide whether or not the same should be allowed”

In fact, before creating a new division for the third gender, the Central Government has to conduct a major exercise in terms of reviewing infrastructure facilities, modules and facilities that are binding to such divisions. Any induction of a candidate not from male or female gender without due deliberations by the authorities would have far-reaching ramifications. The issue of raising a new division is a policy decision.

In their submissions, they pointed out that Hina has registered herself as a trans-woman in the college and she can’t apply for the post of NCC cadet in the capacity of a female.

It was highlighted that one of the primary aims of NCC was to groom cadets for a future with the Armed forces whereas, there is no provision existing for the entry of transgender people (female/male) in the Indian Armed Forces.

THE COURT’S STANCE

In one of the prior hearings of the matter, the Kerala High Court rebuked the Central Government for failing to formulate a policy to enrol trans persons with the corps. It had commented that the world has developed and the government cannot afford to remain in the 19th century.

“Justice Devan Ramachandran, who was hearing the plea, had commented “Certainly there are three genders, male, female, and transgender. In this case the lady, the petitioner herein, has decided to assign to herself her gender as a woman and she has gone through surgery also. Nothing stops you from admitting her even under the NCC Act as a woman”

Isn’t it the government’s responsibility to protect the rights of the minorities be it trans-genders, religious or minorities in any other capacity, Judiciary has always come forward to play its role?