Types of Shareholders' (General) Meetings

General meetings are meetings of the members (shareholders) of a company. The Companies Act, 2013 recognises two kinds of general meetings for an ongoing company — the Annual General Meeting and the Extraordinary General Meeting — and it is important to note, honestly, that a third kind which older students of company law may still encounter in comparative material, the Statutory Meeting, no longer exists in current law.

(A) Statutory Meeting — abolished under the 2013 Act. Under the earlier Companies Act, 1956 (Section 165), every public company limited by shares, and every public company limited by guarantee having a share capital, was required to hold a one-time meeting of its members, called the Statutory Meeting, at some date not less than one month and not more than six months from the date it became entitled to commence business. A Statutory Report, giving details such as shares allotted, cash received, and the abstract of receipts and payments, had to be sent to every member at least 21 days before this meeting and a copy filed with the Registrar. Its purpose was to give members an early, one-time opportunity to review how the company had been floated. The Companies Act, 2013 does not carry forward this requirement — there is no provision anywhere in the 2013 Act for a statutory meeting or a statutory report, and no public company incorporated under the current law is required to hold one. It is studied today mainly for its historical and comparative value, and to understand why some very old public companies' records still refer to it. …