Mobility paves Samsung’s silver path
The Korean giant’s early bet on mobile phones helped it hit the $10-bn mark in India, but in its 25th year it ...
SEBI chief UK Sinha (file photo)
“When SEBI asked companies to appoint women directors, it was a very small initiative towards board diversity. Despite this, almost a third of listed companies have not met the deadline,” UK Sinha, chief of the capital market regulator, said at an investment conference at the BSE this morning. “Why are corporates afraid to let women participate in running our companies?” he asked.
Speaking later to BusinessLine, Sinha said “very few” companies have even now responded positively to the penalties for non-compliance by appointing a woman director, almost a month past the March 31 deadline. “This is something about which I am not very happy.”
When asked if SEBI will consider more severe penalties than those currently imposed, Sinha said, “Our response is very clear — we have given (companies) some time. If they still don’t comply within a certain time, then the penalty will increase. If they don’t comply within the extended time either, then SEBI will have to consider other actions as well.”
This, Sinha elaborated, includes “All actions and powers that Parliament has given to SEBI. You have seen that when we introduced and implemented the minimum public shareholding requirements of 25 per cent, we went for more severe punishment. I hope that will not arise (here).”
In 2013, when promoters failed to comply with the minimum public shareholding requirement for their companies, SEBI froze the voting rights and corporate benefits (such as dividends, bonus shares) of these promoters. Promoters were also banned from accessing the capital markets and taking on other directorship positions. Other penalties were moving the company’s scrip to the trade-to-trade segment, excluding the scrip from the F&O segment and initiating criminal proceedings against the company.
In the current schedule for non-compliance, SEBI has asked stock exchanges to impose fines on companies that haven’t appointed a woman director. Companies that didn’t meet the March 31 deadline have to pay a fine of Rs 50,000. Companies complying between July 1 will and September 30 will have to pay Rs 50,000 and Rs 1,000 each day till the date of compliance
Companies that fail to comply by October 1 will have to pay Rs 1,42,000 and Rs 5,000 for each day of non-compliance.
But these penalties should not have been necessary, Sinha said. “In some European countries, law requires that a quarter of directors be women. Why can’t Indian companies do this voluntarily?”
The Korean giant’s early bet on mobile phones helped it hit the $10-bn mark in India, but in its 25th year it ...
Antrix should adopt a different tactic than merely fighting over jurisdiction: Experts
Invest in relationships, enterprise, behaviour, effort and learning
From different types of osmoses to new membranes, researchers have come up with ways of drawing water
What filters should you apply when mining for under-the-radar small-cap stocks? Read on to find more
High valuation, intensely competitive landscape and small cap nature of the stock are key risks.
Amid choppiness, the benchmark indices slipped marginally; approach the week with caution
SBI Cards (₹1,032.7): Witnesses fresh breakoutBetween September and December last year, the stock of SBI Cards ...
That weekend came the news that Champa’s elder daughter was engaged, the proof arriving in the form of Jaimini ...
“Amma,” Divya yelled from the bathroom. “There’s something in my teeth.”Balakrishnan and Veena froze and ...
What makes the new crop of young Indian cricketers such game-changing winners? Over and above their talent, ...
For their dead, Parsis practise a 3,000-year-old system where corpses are excarnated in the Tower of Silence, ...
Social media influencers are flipping the rules by first getting followers and then launching products and ...
WPP agency Wunderman Thompson has launched its annual Future 100 report, lifting the lid on trends shaping the ...
Paneer, once alien to the South, has found a lucrative market in Chennai
The Flipkart kids playing adults are back — this time to push the home grown e-commerce marketplace’s grocery ...
Three years after its inception, compliance with GST procedures remains a headache for exporters, job workers ...
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of companies are altering the prospects for wooden toys of ...
Aequs Aerospace to create space for large-scale manufacture of toys at Koppal
And it has every reason to smile. Covid-19 has triggered a consumer shift towards branded products as ...
Please Email the Editor