Old & New Companies Act Alive: Confusion Compounded?

Here's a follow up on the Companies Act, 2013. This week a Ministry for Corporate Affairs notification repealed the Sections in the 1956 Act corresponding to 98 notified Sections of the 2013 Act. That clears up some of the confusion of having 2 Acts in force.

But for some of the newly notified Sections, you still have to refer to the old Companies Act. Here's S&R's Sandip Bhagat on the resulting confusion. Sandip Bhagat
Partner, S&R Associates
"You still need to go back to the old Act and look at the old Sections. There is confusion today with this piecemeal approach by the government. Let me give you some examples. The civil liability provisions are in force under the new Act for prospectus liability; yet the definition of expert and whether or not an expert is liable has not been notified. So now we need to go back to the old Act to determine liability of an expert. The definitions are different under the old Act and the new Act for an expert. So it is unclear what you need to look at in that respect. There are other provisions, for example, a foreign company has not been notified; yet there are provisions under the new Act which actually apply to a foreign company. The definition of a foreign company under the old Act and under the new Act are different. The new Act is broader in that sense. So again there is confusion today of which Act do you look at, the old one or the new one."