Page 15 - Banking Finance December 2019

ROUNDUP

Movie on life of Chanda Kochhar stayed
Govt to link piped-water
A Delhi Court has recently stayed the makers of upcoming Bollywood film
scheme with Aadhaar 'Chanda: A Signature that Ruined a Career' from screen-
ing, exhibiting or marketing till further orders the movie
which is allegedly based on the life of former ICICI Bank
CEO Chanda Kochhar.
Additional District Judge Sandeep Garg passed the direc-
tions on a complaint filed through advocate Vijay
Aggarwal, who claimed that the content of the film was
"defamatory" as "it makes insinuations and judgments about the life of the plain-
tiff (Kochhar)".
The government will link the
The court issued notice to the producer, director and others associated with
Aadhaar number of the head of the the film for November 26 when it will next hear the matter.
household for each functional tap
"All the defendants and their associates... are hereby restrained from using the
water connection under the Jal
name of the plaintiff directly or indirectly; screening, exhibiting or marketing
Jeevan Mission.
the film, online or offline, whole or in part or in any other form... till the next
In accordance with the official docu- date of hearing," the court said.
ment of the Jal Shakti ministry, which
is implementing the ambitious In the complaint, Kochhar said that she has "never been approached for ob-
taining her consent to use her name and make a film on her life, by the defen-
programme of providing tap water dants".
connection to every household (‘har
ghar nal se jal’) in less than five years, The film was projected as a biopic on her life.
the Aadhaar link will be done for
“targeted delivery and monitoring of Centre to decriminalise non-serious offenses under
specific outcomes”. Companies Act
“This will be subject to statutory pro- After the government agreed to decriminalise non-compliance with corporate
visions. We are working on the op- social responsibility spending norms, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) is
erational guidelines, which will be planning to look at several other penal provisions in the Companies Act, 2013,
out in the next week or 10 days. and treat them as civil offences.
Things are being worked out includ-
In the month of July, the ministry had constituted a 10-member committee
ing whether people can be allowed
headed by Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas to review whether some
to upload details on to the web por-
tal,” a ministry official said. offences could be decriminalised and handled through an in-house mechanism,
which involves levying penalties in cases of default. The idea was to allow the
All assets created under the mission clogged up trial courts to pay more attention to offences of a serious nature.
will be geo-tagged for better moni-
The panel's report, submitted last August, recommended re-categorising 16
toring. The government has ap-
proved Rs 3.6 lakh crore for this offences - out of 81 in the category of compoundable offences, i.e. those pun-
massive scheme. ishable by fine and/or imprisonment - as defaults carrying civil liabilities under
the above mechanism. These changes have been introduced through the Com-
While the Centre and majority of panies (Amendment) Act, 2019, which received President Ram Nath Kovind's
states will have 50:50 sharing of nod on July 31.
costs, this will be 90:10 for
The government is now planning to expand the list to cover all but the most
Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and
serious offences. The MCA is reportedly mulling decriminalising as many as 65
north-eastern states and in the case
of UTs, the Centre will bear the en- sections under the category of compoundable offences. According to sources,
this was indicated in a recent meeting between industry-corporate giants and
tire cost.
senior government officials.

BANKING FINANCE | DECEMBER | 2019 | 15