Q.Explain the statutory duties of a Company Secretary as laid down under Section 205 of the Companies Act, 2013.

Section 205 is the specific provision that names, in the Act itself, what the Company Secretary is legally required to do — everything else in the rules elaborates on these three core duties.

Section 205 of the Companies Act, 2013 is the provision that names, directly in the Act, the functions of a company secretary — a deliberately short and general provision, with the detailed working-level duties left to be filled in by rules. It states three duties.

The first is to report to the Board about compliance with the provisions of this Act, the rules made thereunder, and other laws applicable to the company. This duty makes the Company Secretary the Board's eyes and ears on legal compliance — the person expected to track which laws apply to the company's business, monitor whether the company is actually meeting its obligations under them, and flag gaps or risks to the Board before they become defaults. It is a continuous, proactive duty, not a once-a-year exercise.

The second is to ensure that the company complies with the applicable Secretarial Standards. Secretarial Standards are formal standards on matters such as the conduct of Board meetings and general meetings, issued by the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and approved by the Central Government under Section 118(10). By naming compliance with these standards as a distinct statutory duty, Section 205 elevates what might otherwise look like professional best practice into a binding legal obligation the Company Secretary is personally responsible for meeting. …