Q.What is the Company Secretaries Act, 1980? State its significance.

Just as the profession of chartered accountancy has its own regulating statute, the Company Secretary profession is governed by a dedicated Act that creates and empowers its regulating body.

The Company Secretaries Act, 1980 is the Act of Parliament that regulates the profession of Company Secretaries in India. Its most significant achievement is establishing the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) as a statutory body corporate. Under this Act, ICSI is empowered to: conduct the Company Secretaryship qualifying examinations that a candidate must clear to become professionally qualified; admit successful candidates as members (Associate and, later, Fellow members) and maintain the official register of members; issue a Certificate of Practice to members who wish to offer company-secretarial services independently as Practising Company Secretaries; and prescribe professional and ethical standards for its members, including the Secretarial Standards on the conduct of company meetings. The significance of this Act is that it gives the Company Secretary profession the same kind of formal, statutory recognition that the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 gives to chartered accountants — without it, "Company Secretary" would have no fixed, legally enforceable meaning, and the Companies Act, 2013 itself would have no qualified profession to draw upon when it requires companies to appoint one.

Students sometimes confuse the Company Secretaries Act, 1980 with provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 itself — it is important to remember these are two separate statutes: one regulates the profession, the other regulates companies and assigns the Company Secretary statutory duties.