New Delhi, 10 March 2021: As many as 366 cases were accorded for sanction for prosecution in the past three years for the violation of CSR rules, confirmed Anurag Singh Thakur, the minister of state for finance and corporate affairs on Monday.
He was responding to a query by Nishikant Dubey, a member of Parliament from the ruling party.
Dubey, a parliamentarian from Godda constituency of Jharkhand, on Monday asked whether any violation of the CSR guidelines and misuse of funds have been reported during the last three years and the current year? He also asked about the corrective steps taken by Government in this regard?
Responding to his query, Thakur said, "Sanction for prosecution has been accorded in 366 cases. All CSR related default are compoundable. So far, 148 applications for compounding have been made and 75 cases have been compounded.
The minister of state, Thakur said that whenever any violation of CSR provisions is reported, action against such non-compliant Companies are initiated as per provisions of Companies Act, 2013 after due examination of records and following due process of law.
He gave the details of the CSR activities and the mode it follows by saying that the Government provides the broad framework for CSR through Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 (‘Act’), the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, 2014 and Schedule VII.
Schedule VII indicates the activities that can be undertaken by the companies as eligible CSR activities.
In 2014 through a circular, MCA clarified that items mentioned in Schedule VII are broad based and can be interpreted liberally. CSR is a Board driven process and the Board of the company is empowered to plan, decide, execute and monitor the CSR activities of the company based on the recommendation of its CSR Committee. The entire CSR architecture is disclosure based and CSR mandated companies are required to file details of CSR amount spent annually in MCA21 registry, which is available in public domain at www.csr.gov.in.
