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Sunday, June 25, 2023

My First Day in Court

While going through my old notes I stumbled upon the diary which I used to keep when I started my practice as a young lawyer. Consequently, for the sake of posterity, I wish to record the day I first entered into the courts as a newly qualified advocate. The date was 3rd September 2016. The courts were the Tis Hazari District Courts in New Delhi.

I had been visiting the chambers of a Learned Advocate who had a well-established practice. I had started being regular to his chambers and used to spend most of the day reading case files and helping him prepare list of dates, case notes, do research on judgments etc. It was during the course of visiting his chambers that I was asked to attend court hearings and observe court proceedings as that would help me in understanding court craft better. I was told that a lawyer learns more by observing rather than reading.  

As a newbie lawyer, I did not want to directly go to the court of the District and Sessions Judge. You can say that I was still green behind my ears and did not want to thrust myself before the gaze of the senior most judge of the court, even as an observant. On the civil side, I was inclined more to visit the court of the Civil Judge to see the matters being argued, before making my way up to the court of the District Judge. Hence, I randomly wandered into the courts and settled for the court of Learned (henceforth “Ld.”) Civil Judge Mahima Rai, Delhi Judicial Service.

The case was Meeta Kumar vs Surender Kumar Jain. At the time of writing this article, almost 7 years after the date of the hearing which I attended, the case is still going on before the court of the Ld. Civil Judge and is at the stage of Defendant/Respondent Evidence. Its first hearing took place on 14th October 2014.

I am presenting here a full background, facts and final disposal order of the court so as to make sense of the arguments advanced during the hearing that I duly noted down in my diary. 

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Provisions Regarding Inspection of Minutes Book of Board Meeting and General Meeting in Companies Act, 2013


In the last post, I tried to breakdown the provisions of Section 118 of the Companies Act, 2013 and Rule 25 of Companies (Management and Administration) Rules, 2014 which dealt with the maintenance of the Minutes of Board and General Meetings of the Company. This post is regarding the provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 which deal with the inspection of the minutes and the mode and manner of doing the same by those entitled to do so.

Inspection of Minutes Book of General Meeting

Section 119 of the Companies Act, 2013 deals with the Inspection of Minutes Book of General Meeting. A breakdown of the provisions of this Section is as follows:

What can be inspected?

The book containing the minutes of the proceedings of a general meeting of a company or of a resolution passed by Postal Ballot.

Who can inspect it?

Any member of the Company can inspect the minutes book free of charge. 

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Provisions Regarding Maintenance of Minutes of Board Meetings and General Meeting under Companies Act, 2013


The 'Minutes Book' is an extremely important document for any company as it is a record of the meetings of the Board of Directors as well as the Extraordinary General Meetings that have taken place in the company. It contains the details of the resolutions passed and the decisions taken in these meetings. 

Section 118 of the Companies Act, 2013 

This Section deals with the Minutes of Proceedings of General Meeting, Meeting of the Board of Directors and Other Meeting and Resolutions Passed by Postal Ballot.

A detailed breakdown of the section is as follows:

Duty of the Company to prepare, sign and maintain Minutes

According to this Section, it shall be the duty of every company to prepare, sign and maintain the following minutes:
  • every General Meeting of any class of shareholders or creditors
  • every resolution passed by postal ballot
  • every meeting of the Board of Directors
  • every meeting of every committee of the Board
These minutes shall be prepared, signed and maintained within 30 days of the conclusion of every such meeting concerned, in books kept for such purpose, with their pages consecutively numbered.

Sunday, February 20, 2022

The Doctrine of Lifting the Corporate Veil in Company Law




Although a company is an artificial juristic personality having separate legal entity, in reality the business is carried on by its member shareholders and key managerial personnel. The doctrine of lifting the corporate veil refers to the scenario when the court completely disregards the company and actually concerns itself with the natural persons running its day-to-day operations. However, the court lifts the corporate veil only in exceptional scenarios which are well settled. Let us take a look at these scenarios one by one:

Statutory Provisions

The Companies Act, 2013 itself contains statutory provisions which enjoin the court to lift or pierce the corporate veil to reach the real persons concerned. These provisions are reproduced, below:

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Corporate Form of Business in India



Lack of quality jobs and an increasingly virtual work culture brought about due to the COVID-19 pandemic has made many people to take the leap of starting their own business. Yet, first time entrepreneurs struggle with the question: should I start a company? What are the advantages of starting one? What would be my risk and liabilities if I start a company?

This article aims to answer all those questions and elaborates on the advantages and disadvantages of a corporate form of business in India.