Q.What are minutes of a meeting? State the legal requirements regarding their preparation under Section 118 of the Companies Act, 2013.

A meeting's decisions only become a reliable, provable fact once they are written down and signed in the manner the law requires.

Minutes are the official, written summary of the business transacted, the discussions held (where relevant), and the resolutions passed at a meeting — kept as a permanent, authenticated record of what actually happened.

Legal requirements under Section 118 of the Companies Act, 2013:

• Every company must prepare, and keep, minutes of every general meeting, every meeting of its Board of Directors, and every meeting of a committee of the Board, within 30 days of the conclusion of the meeting concerned.
• Minutes are recorded in separate minute books, with the pages consecutively numbered.
• Each page must be initialled or signed, and the last page recording the proceedings of each meeting must be dated and signed, within the same 30-day period — by the Chairman of that meeting (or, if he is unable, by a director duly authorised by him) for a general meeting, and by the Chairman of that meeting or of the next succeeding meeting for Board and committee minutes.
• The minute books are to be kept at the company's registered office (or such other place approved by the Board), and members have a right to inspect the minutes of general meetings and obtain copies on payment of the prescribed fee; there is no similar statutory right for members to inspect Board meeting minutes.
• A chairman may, in his reasonable discretion, exclude from the minutes any matter that is or could reasonably be regarded as defamatory of any person, irrelevant or immaterial, or detrimental to the interests of the company. …

A frequent error is to say minutes must be prepared 'immediately' or 'within 7 days' — the statutory period under Section 118 is 30 days from the conclusion of the meeting, and students also often forget th …