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Disqualified directors under banks’ scrutiny Lenders are scanning bank account details of the directors disqualified by the ministry of corporate affairs to analyse their links with shell companies and check whether they diverted funds Banks have started the process of scanning account details of directors disqualified by the ministry of corporate affairs to analyse their links with shell companies and check whether they diverted funds, according to senior executives of four public sector banks, who did not want to be named. “The exercise will take at least three weeks to complete because the list runs into several hundred pages. After shortlisting the names, we will prepare a report on the transactions conducted and submit to the government,” said one of the four officials, a banker with a large Mumbai-based bank. Shell companies, though not defined under the Companies Act, are those that adhere to basic company laws and are used to avoid taxes and launder black money. The Mint, N

Sebi gives more time to brokers for data on clients’ funds Stock brokers can submit monthly data on their clients’ funds to the exchanges within three trading days after the month-end, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said on Monday. Currently, brokers need to submit this data by the next trading day. Sebi received representations from the exchanges expressing operational difficulties faced by the brokers on uploading data of the clients. Accordingly, Sebi asked them to “submit the data as on the last trading day of every month to the stock exchanges on or before the next three trading days till March 31, 2018”. After that, the uploading of that data by the broker to the exchanges will be on weekly basis. BSE asks brokers to submit info on surplus, loss by Oct 31 To keep a check on the financial strength of brokers, the BSE has asked its members to submit details about surplus, accumulated loss in a prescribed format by October 31. Besides, they need to provide dat

FM: Govt addressing economic challenges On a day that Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi was expected to announce a stimulus for the economy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government was in the process of addressing challenges. He termed the decline in gross domestic product (GDP) growth as “a little dip” in the last quarter. On Monday evening, Jaitley briefed the media about the PM´s speech at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting. The PM´s speech to over 2,000 delegates from across the country focused on the themes of “welfare of the poor” and corruption. Modi said none caught for corruption would be spared. Earlier in the day, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said the government planned to address challenges facing the economy ona “war footing”. Briefing the media on the political resolution that the BJP national executive passed unanimously, Gadkari conceded that unemployment among the youth was a challenge. Gadkari also sai

GSTN tweaked features, handled robust August return filing: CEO GST Network (GSTN) has tweaked some of the features on its portal over the past month to make the system more robust and allow glitch-free tax payment facility to nearly 35 lakh assessees, its CEO Prakash Kumar said on Sunday. Of the total 87.33 lakh registered businesses on the GSTN, which manages the IT infrastructure of the new tax regime, 68 lakh were eligible to pay taxes in August. Of the total registered taxpayers, 24.56 lakh are new registrations, while 62.77 lakh have migrated from the earlier excise, service tax and VAT regime. Mr. Kumar said the GSTN portal has handled a humongous load of filing of 1.3 lakh tax returns filing and payment per hour on September 20 — the last day of filing of August tax returns. The Hindu, New Delhi, 25th September 2017

Ministers have to ensure new laws do not lead to litigation In future, if a central ministry plans to bring in a new law, it may have to declare whether its enactment will lead to a spurt in court cases. The ministries will also have to ensure that the new law or an amendment to an existing Act does not lead to a increase in litigations, a senior government functionary has said quoting a document. The note has been written by Minister of State for Law P P Chaudhary to his senior minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the Cabinet Secretariat. The functionary said proposed bills should also focus on alternative dispute resolution to ensure that disputes arising out of laws are settled out-of-court. If the government accepts the suggestion, then all future bills placed in Parliament would carry a “litigation assessment” clause and the ministry concern will have to explain whether it expects litigations once the legislation becomes a law. “The focus is to ensure that laws do not attract cour

CII seeks extension of time for filing GST returns The Confederation of Indian Industry on Sunday sought extension of time by two months for filing of goods and services tax (GST) returns in view of difficulties being faced by businesses. The GST Council has already extended the last date for filing final returns to October 10. The CII has now requested for further extension to resolve certain system issues. In view of difficulties of online filing, the industry body suggested that “the due dates for filing GSTR1, GSTR2 and GSTR3 should be deferred for another month or two”. The chamber also suggested no penal action against trade and industry by the revenue department in the initial six months of GST launch. GST was introduced on July 1. It said the GST Network system response should be enhanced to allow download, preview details, and take prints for reconciliation, before submission. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 25th September 2017

DIPP readies framework to rank states on start up ecosystem To give a boost to startups, the Centre has initiated an exercise to rank states and Union territories on the basis of measures being taken by them to promote budding entrepreneurs,a government official has said. “We have discussed the initial framework. Soon, we will be formalising that. By next month, we will be able to prepare that,” the official added. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will facilitate the process of ranking and it would be done by a third party.“We are holding detailed consultations on parameters over which ranking can be done,” the official, who did not want to be named, said. The framework for ranking states and UTs on the basis of initiatives taken by them to promote startups was discussed in the state startup conference earlier this month. Parameters, which are under discussion, for the rankings include a well defined start-up policy, start-up cell, portal, network of mento