The proposal to vest powers with the Company Law Board to vet M&A and liquidation proposals will be welcomed as this will reduce the burden cast on the courts and speed up clearances. However, there are two issues. Routine M&A (intra-group) and liquidation (of shell companies) proposals should pose no problem. But in others there could be tricky points of law which will need to be taken up by the courts; and parties to adispute cannot be expected to forego their right of appeal to the court. CLB might find itself forwarding a large number of cases to the courts--unless, of course, the law itself is simplified and made unambiguous. Legal reform must precede the enhancement of the powers and jurisdiction of the CLB.

Secondly, there is the issue of the interest of the minority shareholder and of trade creditors (other than banks): how is this proposed to be protected? The department of company affairs is right in seeking to give CLB more teeth, but it needs to be alert to loopholes (as happened with vanishing companies) that allow corporates to give the short shrift to the trusting public.