Company secretaries to be called as governance professionals

The Company Secretaries Institute has written to the Corporate Affairs Ministry suggesting that their members may be rechristened as “governance professionals” on priority.

This is in keeping with the enlarged role envisaged for a company secretary under the new company law and various other legislations, S.N. Ananthasubramanian, President of ICSI, said in a letter to the Corporate Affairs Ministry.

The current nomenculature ‘company secretary’ does not adequately capture or reflect what a company secretary typically does, the letter has said.

Besides, categorising a company secretary as a ‘key managerial personnel’, the new company law has also mandated secretarial audit for certain companies.

This ICSI letter comes on the heels of the Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot assuring the company secretaries’ fraternity in November that he would support them in their effort to gain a bigger say in corporate governance.

The Government would move amendments in Parliament for a new nomenclature for Company Secretaries – governance professionals – should the ICSI push for an amendment, Pilot had recently said.

ICSI COUNCIL DECISION

Even as Justice Srikrishna Committee is undertaking a comprehensive review of the Company Secretaries Act, the council of the ICSI on November 22 decided to seek an amendment to the Act to meet “an urgent need” (rechristen the nomenclature).

After the council’s nod, the Institute of Company Secretaries’ of India (ICSI) has now approached the Corporate Affairs Ministry and sought an amendment to the Company Secretaries Act on priority to rename its members as “governance professionals”.