Mumbai: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has imposed a compounding fee of Rs 30,000 each on Sonya Khan and Feroz Abbas Khan, directors of Bombay Local Pictures Private Limited, after the company failed to present its financial statements at the Annual General Meetings (AGMs) for the financial years 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012-13. In its ruling, the NCLT stated that the total fee of Rs 60,000 would serve as a sufficient deterrent to prevent the repetition of such defaults in the future.
The compounding application was filed by the directors acknowledging that they had not presented the financial statements to the company’s members during the AGMs for the specified years. The application, a copy of which is with FPJ, noted that the directors had submitted the balance sheets for the last three financial years along with the necessary challans.
The application mentioned that t the Registrar of Companies (RoC) Mumbai had not issued any show-cause notices to the company or its directors for non-compliance with Section 210 of the Companies Act, 1956. However, recognizing the oversight and in a bid to uphold good corporate governance, the Board of Directors decided to voluntarily pursue the compounding of the offence under the same section.
The directors explained that the delay in holding the AGMs within the required time frame, and the subsequent violations of Section 210(1), were accidental and inadvertent, asserting that neither the company nor its directors had any malicious or fraudulent intent.
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NCLT thus found the company guilty of failing to lay its financial statements for the stipulated years and concluded that the Rs 60,000 compounding fee would be adequate to deter similar future lapses.
