In order to redress investors ‘grievances, action has been initiated against 95 companies in 2016-17, 101 companies in 2017-18 and 75 companies in 2018-19 under various provisions of the Companies Act. This was stated by the Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Citing rules, Smt. Sitharaman stated that Section 178(5) & 178(6) of the Companies Act, 2013 mandate that every company having more than 1,000 shareholders, debenture holders, deposit holders and any other security holders shall constitute a Stakeholders Relationship Committee to consider and resolve the grievances of the security holders of the company.

Further, to safeguard small investors trading in exchanges in stocks of companies that default on payment, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), in last three years, has initiated action against 22 companies under section 15-I (Adjudication Proceedings) of the Sebi Act, 1992 and against 211 companies under section 11B (Issue of Directions to Companies) of the Sebi Act, 1992, the Minister added.

The Minister further informed that during the year FY 2018-19 Sebi has received 2,453 complaints for non-payment of dues and resolved 2,746 complaints which include complaints pertaining to previous years also.

Investor protection measures: governance mandates and regulatory enforcement used to address grievances and payment disputes in securities markets. Companies with large numbers of security holders must constitute a Stakeholders Relationship Committee to consider and resolve security-holder grievances; enforcement action was taken against multiple companies over three years for compliance failures. Separately, securities market regulators initiated adjudication proceedings and issued directions to numerous companies, and received and resolved a substantial number of complaints concerning non-payment of dues, including prior-year complaints.