Extension of the validity of FCRA registration certificates (Public notice dated 24th March 2022)
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Inauguration of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (24 March 2022)
The Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Shri Shaktikanta Das inaugurated the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) today (March 24, 2022) in Bengaluru. The RBI has set up the RBIH as a Section 8 company under Companies Act, 2013, with an initial capital contribution of ₹100 crore to encourage and nurture financial innovation in a sustainable manner through an institutional set-up.
The Hub has an independent Board with Shri Senapathy (Kris) Gopalakrishnan as the Chairman and other eminent persons from industry and academia as members. RBIH aims to create an ecosystem that focuses on promoting access to financial services and products for the low-income population in the country. This is in line with the objective behind establishment of RBIH i.e., to bring world class innovation to financial sector in India, coupled with the underlying theme of financial inclusion.
The Hub would bring convergence among various stakeholders (BFSI Sector, Start-up ecosystem, Regulators & Academia) in the financial innovation space.
Details regarding the functions of RBIH are available at https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=50666.
The text of the inaugural address by the Governor, RBI is also available at https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_SpeechesView.aspx?Id=1202.
(Yogesh Dayal)
Chief General Manager
Press Release: 2021-2022/1903
Income Tax Department conducts searches on popular chain of educational institutes in Maharashtra (Press release 24 March 2022)
The Income Tax Department carried out a search and seizure operation on 14.03.2022 on a popular chain of educational institutes, running several schools and colleges at multiple locations in India and abroad. The search operation covered more than 25 premises spread over locations in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
During the search, several incriminating evidences including hard copy documents and digital data have been found and seized, which reveal that substantial funds have been siphoned-off from the Trusts for the personal benefit of the group’s promoters and their family members, in violation of provisions relating to claim of exemption by the Trusts under the Income-tax Act, 1961.
The modus operandi of siphoning-off the funds from the Trusts includes debiting of bogus expenses in the guise of purchase of goods/services from various dummy companies and LLPs owned by the promoters, their family members, and some of their trusted employees. It was unearthed that no actual goods/services were delivered/rendered by these entities and the same have been corroborated by the employees in their deposition. The money so siphoned-off has been utilised for investment in acquiring benami properties and making unfair payments.
During the search, evidences of about two dozen immovable properties located in Maharashtra, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu have also been gathered which are either benami properties or not disclosed in the respective returns of Income. These properties have been placed under provisional attachment.
The search also revealed evidences of borrowings on Hundi aggregating to Rs. 55 crore, and their repayment in cash in the form of discharged Promissory Notes/Bills of Exchange, which were found & seized.
The search action has resulted in the seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs. 27 lakh and jewellery worth Rs. 3.90 crore.
Further investigations are in progress.
84.61% of total defrauded funds attached/seized under PMLA and Fugitive Economic Offenders Act & Consortium of banks realizes Rs. 7,975.27 crore by sale of assets (MoF Press Release 24 March 2022)
Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA) provide that the Special Court trying the offence may restore any property/assets involved in money laundering to a third party claimant with legitimate interest, including banks. This was stated by Union Minister of State for Finance Shri Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
The Minister stated that in the cases pertaining to Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi who have defrauded Public Sector banks by siphoning off the funds through their companies which resulted in total loss of Rs. 22,585.83 crore to the public sector banks.
Giving more details, the Minister stated that as on 15.03.2022, assets worth Rs. 19,111.20 crore have been attached under the provisions of PMLA. Out of which, assets worth Rs. 15,113.91 crores has been restituted to the Public Sector Banks. In addition, assets worth Rs 335.06 crore have been confiscated to Government of India.
The Minister further stated that as on 15.03.2022, 84.61% of the total defrauded funds in these cases have been attached/seized and 66.91% of total loss to the banks has been handed over to Banks/Confiscated to Government of India. It is pertinent to mention here that as on 15.03.2022, the consortium of banks led by SBI has realized Rs. 7,975.27 crore by sale of assets handed over to them by the Directorate of Enforcement, the Minister added.
Establishment of Web Portal (Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS))
Ministry of Law and Justice Press Release 24 March 2022
The Ministry of Law and Justice, Department of Legal Affairs had taken the initiative for launch of the Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS), a web based application for upload of information and monitoring of court cases where Union of India is one of the parties. It is an innovative and easy to access online tool which is available 24×7 to all the stakeholders’ viz., government officials, department users, nodal officers, etc.
LIMBS Ver.2 is an upgraded version of LIMBS developed by NIC. It is a dashboard based system for the user Ministries/Departments on which they can feed the litigation matters pertaining to them and monitor them. This version is overhauled with the use of Open Source technologies using Coordinator framework of Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) to enhance the security of the system and improve the efficiency of the system. Till date, LIMBS Ver.2 has captured more than 8.06 lacs court cases (including archive cases) with 5.50 lakh live cases, 14204 registered users, more than 20000 advocates and 3302 courts on a single platform.
The Government has introduced Mediation Bill, 2021 in the Rajya Sabha on 20.12.2021 to enact a standalone law on Mediation. The Bill aims to promote and facilitate mediation, especially institutional mediation, for resolution of disputes, commercial or otherwise, enforce mediated settlement agreements, provide for a body for registration of mediators, to encourage community mediation and to make online mediation as acceptable and cost effective process and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
The Bill is presently under examination of the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice.
This information was given by Shri Kiren Rijiju Union Minister, Minister of Law and Justice, in Rajya Sabha today.
Government e-Market portal touches an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22
Government e-Market portal touches an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22
The number of orders surpasses 31.5 Lakh in the current financial year with a growth rate of 22%
In a short span of 5 years, GeM becomes one of the largest government e-procurement platforms in the world
GeM endeavours to make government procurement more inclusive by promoting women entrepreneurs and MSMEs
States continue to be an important stakeholder with 30% contribution to Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)
The portal successfully transforms public procurement in India by driving inclusion, usability, transparency, efficiency and cost saving
Government e Marketplace (GeM) has attained an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22. This represents a 160% growth compared to last FY. Addressing media on the occasion, Shri Prashant Kumar Singh, CEO, GeM said that since inception the cumulative Gross Merchandize Value (GMV) reached INR 1 Lakh crore over 4 and half years, on 23rd March 2021, whereas the GMV of GeM in the current Financial Year surpassed Rs. 1 lakh crore (Ts. 1 trillion) in less than a year. This represents a 160% growth compared to last FY. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi had tweeted about this accomplishment.
Shri Singh added that the portal had transformed public procurement in India by driving its three pillars viz. inclusion, usability and transparency and efficiency and cost saving. The number of orders has also surpassed 31.5 Lakh in the current financial year with a growth at the rate of 22%. In a short span of 5 years, GeM has become one of the biggest government e-procurement platforms in the world.
Referring to the share of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs), Shri Singh said that approximately Rs. 43,000 Crore worth procurement was done by CPSEs (~43% of total GMV) on GeM, showing an approximate growth of 508% as compared to last FY. He also asserted that States continued to be an important stakeholder with approx. 30% contribution to total GMV.
Highlighting the role played by GeM in ushering in inclusion in government procurement, Shri Singh said that GeM has taken a host of steps to onboard products of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), tribal communities, craftsmen, weavers, and MSMEs. 57% of the total business on GeM has come through the MSME units and over 6% has been contributed by female entrepreneurs. It may be noted that the number of women sellers and entrepreneurs on GeM has grown 6 times in a year.
It may be noted that procurement from MSEs is at 57% of the total GMV currently with a growth of 143% compared to last FY. There is a 15% increase in Buyer onboarding compared to last FY and there is a 187% increase in Seller onboarding compared to last FY. There is also a 44% increase in the number of Services compared to last FY with a 25% contribution in the total GMV (Rs. 25,000 Crore)
GeM is an online platform for public procurement in India which was envisaged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi ji. The initiative was launched on August 9, 2016 by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GoI, with an objective to create an open and transparent procurement platform for government buyers. Created in a record time of 5 months, GeM facilitates online procurement of common use Goods and Services.
According to an independent assessment made by the World Bank, average savings for buyers in Government e Marketplace portal is about 9.75% on the median price. Since inception GeM has shown impressive growth year on year with better prices, thus helping the state exchequer save substantial money. In an analysis in the Economic Survey 2021-22, cost comparison of various commodities on GeM with those of popular online platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart showed that GeM prices were 9.5% lower. 10 out of 22 commodities in the sample were cheaper on the GeM portal as compared to other platforms.
New features and initiatives launched in GeM Covid 19 Oxygen drive was carried out during the Covid crisis to onboard suppliers of compressed medical oxygen gas cylinders on GeM. Total 250 Covid-19 medical categories are available on GeM; over 4.73 Lakh orders were placed through the same since March 2020.
GeM is integrating with Panchayati Raj Institutions to allow online buying and selling by the Panchayats at the grassroot level. The pilot in Gurgaon district panchayats has been successfully completed. Gem is in an advanced stage of integration with IndiaPost for extending logistics services at the grassroot level.
GeM SAHAY is an initiative to facilitate small sellers to avail credit financing from various integrated Lenders for the Orders received on GeM Portal.The Forward auction module has been launched facilitating government Auctioneers to auction assets using multiple auction modes and monitor the complete selling life cycle of their assets.
GeM platform supports advanced analytics framework to identify anomalous behaviour and transactions, market intelligence, demand/price forecasting and procurement planning/monitoring. GeM now has integration with 24 CPSEs ERP systems for post order information exchange. In total over 3 Lakh orders worth Rs. 42,000 Crore were exchanged via the integration.
GeM has Implemented Natural Language Processing based search to understand the users’ intent thereby allowing the display of relevant and more accurate search results when they search for products or services on GeM.
GeM has enabled the Buyback mechanism through which the buyer will be able to float a bid to replace old products with new ones and get some additional discount/buyback on the old products. GeM has enabled schedule wise evaluation for BoQ bids. The Buyers can now publish and evaluate item-wise, group-wise, consignee-wise for the BoQ Bids.
To ensure that business growth is supported by the platform with reliability and performance, GeM has implemented various improvements like efficient caching, optimizing active storages, improving technology currency across the layers of programming languages to databases and implemented enhanced security measures. The Platform is supporting ~13,500 concurrent users with some DB loads reaching ~35K QPS (Queries per Second).
GeM has also engaged external security consultants for exhaustive audits and has implemented ~75 additional security directives. It is also going through an STQC certification audit planned to complete by March 2022.While load on the platform increased by 70%, the page response time has seen an improvement of 40%. On an average, the number of bids per day has also increased from 1,100 in April 2021 to 2,800 in March 2022. Corresponding seller participation per day has also increased to 15,000 from 10,000 in the same period.
GeM was adjudged as the winner in the “Best Use of Digital Technology” category at the CIPS Excellence in Procurement Awards 2021 held at London. GeM emerged the winner in this category after competing with some of the biggest and best names in procurement across the public and private sector globally, including GEP, Jaguar Land Rover, Royal Dutch Shell, VenDigital and Shell.
GeM was also shortlisted as a finalist in two additional categories as well, i.e. ‘Public Procurement Project of the Year’ and ‘Best Initiative to Build a Diverse Supply Base’ where it was in the august company of some path-breaking organizations with great initiatives.
Press Release 24th March 2022
IBBI admits 1,060 cases into corporate insolvency resolution process in around 2 years (Press release 22nd March 2022)
As per the information provided by Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, in the years 2020-21 and 2021-22 (upto 31st December, 2021), 538 and 522 cases,
respectively, have been admitted into the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. This was stated by Union Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Shri Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
Giving more details, the Minister gave details of action taken in the said cases as follows:-
Further details are available in public domain on www.ibbi.gov.in, which are periodically updated, the Minister added.
SFIO assigned 14 cases involving 95 companies in FY 2021-22
Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) formed through a Government Resolution is an Investigating Agency under Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), which was given statutory recognition under the Companies Act, 2013 (the Act). This was stated by Union Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Shri Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
The Minister stated that the Central Government orders and assigns to SFIO, investigation cases involving many companies where alleged fraudulent activities by corporates are reported which includes cases of misappropriation of funds by the promoters / top management and cheating the lenders.
Giving details of cases ordered and assigned to SFIO, the Minister stated:
The Minister stated a number of measures the Government has taken to curb and prevent corporate frauds as under:
- Fraud as a substantive offence has been introduced in the Act;
- Stricter norms of Corporate Governance have been provided in the Act;
- It has been made mandatory for every existing or prospective directors to obtain a “Directors Identification Number” (DIN);
- In case of incorporation of a new company or change of address of an existing company, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has made it mandatory for professionals to verify details of the company and to personally visit their premises and certify that the premises are at the disposal of the company.
- MCA has also undertaken pre-emptive measures aimed at sensitizing people through investors awareness programs which are organized regularly in association with the three professional institutes namely Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (1CA), Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICoAI) and Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) in various cities.
- Section 143 (12) has been introduced in the Companies Act, 2013 by which an auditor of a company in the course of the performance of his duties as auditor, if he has reason to believe that an offence of fraud involving such amount(s) as may be prescribed, is being or has been committed in the company by its officers or employees, the auditor shall report the matter to the Central Government.
Section 143 (14) provides that the above provision shall mutatis mutandis apply to the cost accountant conducting cost audit under section 148 or the company secretary in practice conducting secretarial audit under section 204.
Section 143 (15) provides that if any auditor, cost accountant or company secretary in practice do not comply with the above provisions then he shall be liable to penalty.
- MCA has set up Central Scrutiny Cell (CSC) which became effective from 23.03.2021 where Straight Through Process (STP) Forms are scrutinized.
- SEBI has advised Stock Exchanges to set up a surveillance mechanism to monitor the periodic filings and disclosures made by listed companies to find out probable financial reporting irregularities & non-disclosures and generate early warning signals on possible misrepresentations in financial statements.
MCA Press Release 22nd March 2022
More than 4,000 cases admitted for corporate insolvency resolution process since FY 2016 (MCA Press release 22 March 2022)
More than 4,000 cases admitted for corporate insolvency resolution process since FY 2016
359 cases resolved with realisable value of more than Rs 2 lakh crore for creditors
Posted Date:- Mar 22, 2022
As per the information provided by Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India [IBBI, the Regulator under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC)], the following is the year wise details of number of cases admitted for corporate insolvency resolution process under the Code:
This was stated by Union Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Shri Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
Giving more details, the Minister gave Year-wise details of the number of cases resolved along with total amount of admitted claims and realisable value for creditors in such cases as following:
Steps by Government to promote Renewable Energy (Press release 22 March 2022)
The Government has taken several steps to promote renewable energy, including wind energy, in the country. These include:
- permitting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) up to 100 percent under the automatic route,
- waiver of Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) charges for inter-state sale of solar and wind power for projects to be commissioned by 30th June 2025,
- declaration of trajectory for Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) up to the year 2022,
- setting up of Ultra Mega Renewable Energy Parks to provide land and transmission to RE developers on a plug and play basis,
- laying of new transmission lines and creating new sub-station capacity for evacuation of renewable power,
- setting up of Project Development Cell for attracting and facilitating investments,
- Standard Bidding Guidelines for tariff based competitive bidding process for procurement of Power from Grid Connected Solar PV and Wind Projects.
- Government has issued orders that power shall be dispatched against Letter of Credit (LC) or advance payment to ensure timely payment by distribution licensees to RE generators.
- Conducting skill development programmes to create a pool of skilled manpower for implementation, operation and maintenance of RE projects.
In addition to the above, the following steps have been taken specifically for promoting wind energy:
- Concessional custom duty exemption on certain components required for manufacturing of wind electric generators.
- Generation Based Incentive (GBI) is being provided to the wind projects commissioned on or before 31 March 2017.
- Technical support including wind resource assessment and identification of potential sites through the National Institute of Wind Energy, Chennai.
This information was given by Shri R.K Singh, Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
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