MCA exempts experienced Key Managerial Personnel and Directors from Online Test on Appointment of Independent Directors [Read Notification]

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs ( MCA ) has exempted the experienced Key Managerial Personnel and Directors from Online Test on the appointment of Independent Directors.

The Central Government has proposed amended rules regarding appointment and qualification of company independent directors and thereafter published in the Gazette of India.

In exercise of the powers conferred by section 149 read, with section 469 of the Companies Act,2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Rules, 2014.

The principal rules were published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, section 3, sub-section (i) aide notification dated on 31″t March 2074 and were last amended vide notification dated the 22 October 2019.

These rules may be called the Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Amendment Rules, 2020 and it will come into force after publication of official gazette.

The Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Rules, 2014, in rule 6, in sub-rule (1), in clause (a), for the words ”three months” the words “five months” shall be substituted;

The following proviso has been substituted, “Provided that an individual shall not be required to pass the online proficiency self-assessment test, when he has served as a director or key managerial personnel, for a total period of not less than ten years, as on the date of inclusion of his name in the databank, in one or more of the following, namely:-

(a) Listed public company; or

(b) An unlisted public company having a paid-up share capital of rupees ten crores or more; or

(c) Body corporate listed on a recognized stock exchange”.

(ii) In the second proviso, for the word ‘companies’ the words “companies or bodies corporate” shall be substituted.