Corporate Laws Amendment Bill: India’s JPC Verdict

Seven days. That is the notice period India’s Corporate Laws Amendment Bill proposes for extraordinary general meetings held wholly online. On 3 August 2026, a Joint Parliamentary Committee (a panel drawn from both Houses of Parliament) presented its report on the Corporate Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 (Bill No. 85 of 2026). It backed the Bill with clause-wise changes. Parliament has not passed it yet. Still, the direction of travel is clear, and groups with Indian entities have good reason to watch closely.

Where does the Corporate Laws Amendment Bill stand today?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the Bill in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India’s Parliament) on 23 March 2026. The same day, the Lok Sabha moved to send it to a Joint Committee, and the Rajya Sabha (the upper house) agreed on 24 March. The Bill amends two statutes: the Companies Act, 2013 and the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008. The timeline slipped once along the way. The committee originally had to report by the end of the first week of the 2026 Monsoon Session. It then received an extension to the last day of that session. On 3 August, it presented its report to the Lok Sabha and laid it in the Rajya Sabha.

What the report does not do is change the law. As of early November 2026, the PRS Legislative Research bill tracker still lists the committee report as the latest stage. Both Houses must still pass the Bill. After that, the Central Government will bring provisions into force by notification in the Official Gazette. It may also choose different dates for different provisions.

So treat everything below as exactly what it is: a proposal.

How did the committee reach its view?

The scrutiny was extensive. The committee, chaired by Sudheer Gupta, held 25 sittings and heard from 83 experts and stakeholders. It also received 130 memoranda containing more than 900 suggestions. The witness list reads like a map of Indian corporate life. It included:

• the MCA, other ministries and regulators such as the Reserve Bank of India;
• professional institutes for accountants and company secretaries;
• industry chambers, law schools and several major law firms;
• startups, small companies, investment firms and banks, during a study visit to Mumbai.

The committee adopted its report at its final sitting on 31 July 2026. Two of its 31 members submitted dissent notes. Overall, though, the report recommends adopting the Corporate Laws Amendment Bill with modifications rather than starting again.

How do virtual general meetings work right now?

Today, virtual meetings rest on administrative relief rather than on the Act itself. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) first allowed video-conference AGMs in May 2020, during the pandemic. It then renewed that permission, one circular at a time, for five years. The latest, General Circular No. 03/2025 of 22 September 2025, dropped the fixed end date. Companies may now hold AGMs and EGMs by video conferencing or other audio-visual means until the MCA decides otherwise. Three limits apply:

• The circular does not extend the statutory deadlines for holding an AGM.
• The Act’s existing notice requirement of 21 days still governs general meetings.
• The MCA can revoke the facility, since nothing in the Act guarantees it.

In short, a long-running arrangement built on a temporary licence. The Corporate Laws Amendment Bill would give it a statutory footing.

What would change for AGMs and EGMs?

Under the Bill, a company could hold its annual general meeting physically or by video conferencing, either wholly or partly. EGMs would get the same flexibility. Rules would set out the manner and conditions. There is a catch, though. Every company would still need to hold its AGM in physical mode at least once every three years. A permanently remote meeting calendar is therefore off the table.

The headline seven days applies to EGMs, not AGMs. A company could call an EGM held wholly by video conferencing on not less than seven days’ notice, or another period the rules prescribe. As drafted, the shorter window is tied to fully virtual EGMs. AGMs keep the existing notice regime. That detail is easy to miss. Several summaries describe “digital AGMs and EGMs on seven days’ notice”, which reads more broadly than the Bill does.

The committee’s report describes the overall approach as a balance between technological efficiency and shareholder accountability. It kept the requirement for a periodic physical AGM as part of that balance.

Why are investors uneasy about seven days?

Not everyone welcomes the shorter window. In its submission to the committee, the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) named it as its members’ greatest concern. Its argument is practical. Seven days, it said, does not give many shareholders enough time to receive notice, assess resolutions and cast informed votes. International investors face the tightest squeeze. Moving a meeting online, the ICGN pointed out, does not shorten the time investors need to vote.

The ICGN asked the committee to keep 21 days for all general meetings. As a minimum, it wanted listed companies held to 21 days, either through the Act or through the listing rules of SEBI (India’s securities regulator). The PRS summary of the committee’s key recommendations does not list any change to the seven-day rule. Until the final text emerges, assume it remains in play. For multinational groups, the practical question is less “can we?” and more “should we?”, particularly where minority or overseas shareholders sit on the register.

Which companies could qualify as “small”?

India’s small company regime offers lighter compliance to companies below set size limits. Under the current Act, a small company must have both:

• paid-up share capital of up to ₹50 lakh, or a higher prescribed amount capped at ₹10 crore; and
• turnover of up to ₹2 crore, or a higher prescribed amount capped at ₹100 crore.

(For readers outside India, one lakh is 100,000 rupees and one crore is ten million.)

The current rules already set the figures at those ceilings. The Corporate Laws Amendment Bill would double the caps, to ₹20 crore for capital and ₹200 crore for turnover. Read the wording carefully, however. The Bill raises the ceilings, not the operative figures. A company with ₹15 crore of paid-up capital would not become small the day the Act takes effect. It would need the MCA to amend the rules first.

Why does the label matter? Among other things, small companies would need only one board meeting per calendar year, rather than one in each half of the year. One person companies and dormant companies would get the same relief. The Bill would also let the government exempt prescribed companies from appointing an auditor, and the committee wants that relief limited to private companies.

What else in the Corporate Laws Amendment Bill affects group structures?

Meetings and thresholds grab the headlines. Yet several quieter changes could matter just as much to a legal team managing Indian subsidiaries.

• First, electronic service. Prescribed classes of companies could serve prescribed documents on members electronically. Commentators note that members may still request physical copies, subject to a fee.
• Second, director disclosures. At present, directors disclose their interests at the first board meeting of each financial year. The Bill would make this event-based, so a new disclosure follows only when an interest actually changes.
• Third, the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) regime at GIFT City, India’s offshore financial hub. Companies and LLPs set up there could issue and maintain capital in a permitted foreign currency. For LLPs, the committee also backed an “IFSC LLP” name suffix and annual, rather than 30-day, filing of partner changes for SEBI- or IFSC-regulated LLPs.
• Finally, decriminalisation. The Bill replaces imprisonment or fines with civil penalties for a range of procedural defaults. Serious misconduct, such as fraud, keeps its criminal consequences.

What did the committee push back on?

The committee broadly endorsed the Bill, but it reined in several open-ended powers. According to the PRS summary of its report, it recommended:

• raising the CSR (corporate social responsibility) net profit trigger from ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore, but removing the government’s power to revise it later;
• limiting the proposed exemption from appointing auditors to private companies only;
• deleting the new “fit and proper” test for directors, which it saw as an excessively broad delegated power;
• adding an exit right for dissenting shareholders in fast-track mergers, where the approval threshold would fall from 90% to 75%;
• widening the age range for managing and whole-time directors to 18 to 75, from 21 to 70.

Separately, it proposed a fixed penalty of ₹50,000 for certain non-compliances, in keeping with the Bill’s wider shift from criminal to civil consequences.

For LLPs, the committee went further than the Bill in places. It recommended keeping certain investor details of SEBI- and IFSC-regulated LLPs out of public inspection. It also wanted the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 to apply to electronic records held by the Registrar.

None of this binds the government. However, committee recommendations often shape the final text, so they offer a useful preview of where the law may land.

What should companies with Indian entities do now?

Nothing here demands immediate action. Current law and the MCA circular still govern Indian general meetings. In particular, do not change filings, drop a CSR committee or skip an auditor appointment on the strength of the Bill. That said, a lot of the detail will arrive through rules. On at least one point, the MCA told the committee it would amend the relevant rules and forms as soon as Parliament passes the Bill. Changes could therefore follow quickly once the vote happens.

Some light groundwork now will save a scramble later. Consider these steps:

• Map your Indian entities against the proposed small company ceilings, and flag any that sit close to the line.
• Note when each company last held a physical AGM, in case a three-year cycle applies.
• Check articles of association and internal procedures for assumptions about meeting format and notice periods.
• For widely held or listed entities, ask how your shareholders would cope with a seven-day EGM.
• Review how each entity serves documents on members, ahead of any move to electronic-only service.
• Watch for the draft rules, since they will set the operative thresholds and meeting conditions.

Think of it as reading the agenda before the meeting is called. When Parliament does act, provisions may switch on at different times. Groups that already know their exposure will adapt faster than those starting from scratch.

What’s next?

Managing a general meeting requires detailed planning and full legal awareness. For more insights into processes in other jurisdictions, explore our article: Director ID Reporting in Australia from July 2027.

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