 know it's been a rough couple of months. The stock market has tanked, our recession looks slightly, and the world is facing a major pandemic. However, what we must never forget are the words of our first Prime Minister, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru. The crisis and dead logs, when they occur, have at least the advantage that the force is to think. This lockdown has certainly got me thinking of scenario before the lockdown. How India has been home to more than 39,000 DPIIT registered startups so far. The Indian startup ecosystem was producing unicorns at a rapid speed with multi-billion dollar funding from global investors and also celebrating high-profile exit such as World Mart Flipkart acquisition that happened for $16 billion in 2018. However, the startups now in all sectors, whether it is technology, hospitality or finance, post-COVID-19 are being forced to adapt the business disruptions and the vibes of fear. In these trying times, startup founders are constantly worrying about the consequences of sweeping COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions impacting their enterprise, other communities and India. They are leaving no stone unturned to find a way to adapt and grow in these tough times. Although there have been financial crisis before, this incident is truly a black zone and can take up to anywhere between 12 to 18 months for businesses to get stable. But I believe this too shall pass. And therefore, to do this constructively and turn it into a boom, it is important to look for the silver lining. We need to utilize this lockdown period to focus on our objectives and align it with the new forecasted market needs. As for the review and analysis of the Karan situation, today I'll be providing the plan for the startups to have a stronger roadmap before they hit the reality again. Our first step in the plan is to assess your business risk. In such a time of pandemic, the external risks such as changing economy, demand pattern changes, etc, shall certainly be posed to most of the businesses, except of the essential goods or services. This COVID-19 will bring about a lot of changes, both external and internal, while we can't mitigate the external risks, but can certainly mitigate its effects by assessing internal risk that we may have to face and plan after strategies keep in mind. Few risks that needs to be assessed on priority by startups are financial risk, operational risk, workforce risk, compliance risk, contractual risk and strategic risk. Well, now I'll be explaining each in brief. We need to know as a company, what is our burn rate? The burn rate, as a term, is used by startup companies and investors to track the amount of monthly cash that a company spends before it starts generating income. Assessing the available cash flows for next few months shall help you understand which strategy will work in your favor and accordingly you can plan and implement them successfully. It'll give you an idea whether you have enough capital to go on or you need to put in some extra funds for the business to survive this term. Operational risks. Operations, if not aligned with the changing economic demands, shall lead your startup to greater risks. This risk could be due to policies or procedures that were implemented before the pandemic in your company, which if not rethought off or aligned with for a cast of consumer demand patterns, post-COVID-19, shall certainly deter the growth of your business. Hence, it is crucial for you to analyze the new consumer demand pattern. This might also require some startups to pivot, just like Dyson, the British technology company that is best known for its high-powered vacuum cleaners, hairdryers, fans, has now started designing ventilator, known as the co-vent. Not always it is required to do all the things in-house or by yourself. So think of some noble ways, such as butters or tie-ups with other startups. They shall save you time and cost and ensure both companies are adding value to each other. Workforces. Startups to maintain the critical workforce. It is the effective workforce that is inevitable for the growth. If you're thinking of cutting down on the workforce, then you may want to think twice. Decisions of cutting down critical workforce in haste are known to be a bad decision legally and for the growth of your company. He might save some money today, but it shall delay the growth and future. Hence, consider other options such as creating ESOP pools for the workforce. ESOP designed by a law firm with enough flexibility can be used to motivate employees through equity ownership. Therefore, according to theory, ESOPs implicitly enhance productivity and profitability of the company. Compliance in contractual risks. In times like these, complying with necessary laws might not be enough for your business to run. It is essential to be aware and stay updated with the new guidelines being given by the government and various associations of the respective industries. All contractual obligations shall also be reassessed and if required, renegotiate it completely and competently right now. And lastly, strategic risk. Everyone knows for a successful business, you need a well thought out plan. But with the dynamic times and shifting the patterns, one needs to analyze the strategies now. Whether they'll be sustainable or not. For instance, if any startup initiated the funding round before the pandemic, they need to reassess whether they want the incoming funds now to be redirected towards product diversification strategy or new product development strategy. Once all the aforementioned risks are assessed, you may find it easy to devise an effective risk management framework that will allow your company to be proactive rather than reactive while encountering the changes and coping up with them in real market after lockdown gets over. Second step in the plan is evaluate financial support. Assess your startup's burn rate and evaluate the financial support required for your company to grow. Various schemes are being launched in India to benefit the startups. Few of them I'll be mentioning here today, such as anti-lockdown loans. Certain NBFC lenders are launching a new loan offering such as anti-lockdown loans to help credit worthy businesses and individuals to access credit required to meet their Charter liquidity needs. They have a reason due to the nationwide lockdown and forced to avoid the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Few other schemes such as SAVE and CSAS have been launched by Small Industries Development Bank of India, better known as SIDB. SAVE is SIDB assistance to facilitate emergency response against coronavirus under the directive of central government to provide financial assistance to startups and MSMEs. The purpose of the scheme is number one to purchase any equipment or assets for manufacturing or service. Number two to purchase raw material or consumables for production. These loans if sanctioned are being provided at an interest rate of as low as 5% that to within 48 hours. Another scheme is CSAS by SIDB. It is COVID-19 startup assistance scheme. This scheme is to provide interim support to startups whose cash flows and liquidity has been adversely affected by COVID-19. The assistance can be used for various working capital requirements like salaries or wages, rent, administrative expenses, payments to vendors, etc. Now I'll be moving towards the third step in the plan. Restructure organization with robust legal foundation. Few points to be considered here are organization restructuring to sustain the effects of this pandemic, the rules, roles and responsibilities of each in the company should be redefined and well informed. Considering the situation today, if the promoters decides to entrust an employee with multiple roles it should be communicated clearly to the employee in time that downsizing or reshuffling shall also assist the startup in reducing its burn rate. Data privacy. Many businesses once their resume offices may plan on collecting travel and health information of their employees. This shall be limited and employees should not be forced to provide any relevant information. Still if a company decides to collect this information make sure the data is being collected and is absolutely safe and in strong privacy. It cannot be distributed or disclosed to any third party for any other purpose. Contractual reassessment. It's not always the counterparties but there might be a situation that you as a company are unable to fulfill contractual obligations. Review the contracts especially the key contracts and evaluate to see what protections can you get and risks you're exposed to. This certainly will be issues in supply chains, contractual obligations as have been experienced in China, UK and other countries all over the world. Assess whether the circumstances and applicable laws permits any party to exert a basis for avoiding or pausing performance under these contracts. Also check for force measure or clause. Everyone would be having question if they can invoke this clause and not pay the rentals against their leases, utility invoices can be waived off etc. If a contract clearly provides that it can be resided by invoking force measure good for you. However if a contract is silent on this clause or if it is unhelpful then look at the contract holistically to analyze if the contract can be rendered impossible or illegal to perform as per any other clause. This can also provide a relief in tough times. However this requires a fact specific review of the contract but if you're invoking the contract basis such clause be well aware of all the consequences before invoking your contract making sure it shouldn't jeopardize your company financially in the long run as well. Maintain records and evidences. If you are residing or pausing a contract formulate a plan within your company to manage each communication with the counterparties so that even after COVID-19 they're unable to file a suit against you. Legally wedded company policies and contingency plan should also be drafted. Draft and circulate strict company policies to ensure that you have a healthy work culture keeping in mind the safety of your employees. Few examples of such policies would be health and safety policy, auditing of suppliers for quality testing policy, data privacy policy, hygiene and social distancing policy in workplace, work from home policy. Also contingency plan needs to be well prepared now because let's say if an employee in your company suffers with COVID at work you need to be prepared for it today. Structuring a contingency plan will save you the panic and unnecessary expense at that time and shall also reinstate your employees and customers believe in your company. While chalking out a plan make sure you answer the following questions. What benefits would you want to offer your employees? What salary would you want to pay or any other relief that you want to offer them? How will you inform other staff members that they may be exposed to the risk of infection? How will you monitor the health of others that may be exposed? Would you let that employee work from home? How will you respond if the news goes in the market and disrupts your company's repute? What leave policy would you offer that employee? Consider these questions while drafting the contingency plan. Moving towards the last step in the plan. Implementation and conducting legal orders. Once the plan provides for risk analysis, procedures, policies, budgets, rules, standards, etc., startup needs to realize their vision which requires a strong implementation plan. For effective implementation, following points if considered shall assist the startup. Effective communication. Effective communication with your employees at all levels throughout the company. Engages them and also helps the management in getting real-time inputs. Employees provide insights into issues, concerns and opportunities which may not have been known before. Therefore, effective communication with employees not only assists management to come up with better strategic planning but also involves the employees and builds their trust in the company. Policies and vision. Training the employees with goal metrics. Every business is unique. So are the strategies. Plans to train employees on the job may help you meet the business needs quickly. Quantifying training with defined matrix make the work more interesting for the employees. However, when developing goals make sure matrix give the whole picture including quantity, quality, time, cost effectiveness. At the time of implementing these training initiatives, employee's progress should be monitored to ensure that the program is effective. Legal audits. Once a strategic plan is implemented, it is important to conduct legal audits to check whether the practices decided are being implemented by each person or not and forecasted results are being achieved or not by the startup. A comprehensive legal audit time to time will help you examine a wide range of issues such as choice and structure of the entity, recent act of the board of directors and documentation relating to those decisions. Protection of intellectual property, forms and methods of distribution and marketing, pending and threatened litigation, insurance coverage, hiring and firing practices, employment agreements, trade regulations, product liability and environmental law, and a review of sales and collection practices. An internal legal audit should be undertaken on a regular basis to pick out the potential weaknesses or areas that are not meeting the required objectives of your startup. Objective reviewing of your working practices, policies and procedures can help to highlight areas that require more work. So now I'm certain that the societal and economic impact of COVID-19 shall be humongous. However, if the startups pull it together and make all required decisions well in time, there is light at the end of the tunnel. So remember that it is in tough times that leaders emerge, take charge, plan things and be the leader you are meant to be. Thank you. Hope you all had takeaways from this webinar today. However, if anyone has any questions or want to discuss any matter related to startups in detail, you can contact me on the information provided and I'll be happy to assist. Over to you, Sonali. Wonderful insights, Prerna. I would like everyone to take the next two minutes to type in any questions they might have about this session and we'll start with the next session after that. Thank you, Prerna. So I would now like to introduce our next speaker. He routinely counsels manufacturing and service industry companies on a vast range of day-to-day corporate and regulatory compliances in all elements of commerce and business, including contracts, corporate governance, competition, labour and employment, health and safety, and regulatory compliances. He assists in legal due diligence, audits, structuring of business, entry into India, setting up of compliance systems, drawing paperwork or contracts and trainings. His industry focus spreads across automobile aviation, banking, chemicals, defence, energy, food, pharmaceuticals, information technology and waste management. He's very regular in conferences as speaker for national and international companies. He has more than 150 publications to his name and is a trained mediator and has seconded in multiple companies to gain first-hand in-house experience to add value to the overall business legal advisory services. Please welcome Advocate Meeraj Thube, partner at Lakshmi Kumaran and Sridharan. Welcome Mr. Meeraj. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you, Zomali. Start straight away, given the limited time that we have. So taking note of how COVID-19 has impacted other countries and social distancing being the only effective way to control the spread, the Government of India invoked the Disaster Management Act of 2005 to implement a nationwide lockdown in India initially for three weeks, effective from March 24th, which was extended until May 3rd. Based on the advisory issued by the Government of India, all state governments and union territories have classified COVID-19 as an epidemic disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1892, giving local administration greater authority to enhance preparedness and containment of the virus by imposing measures such as quarantine, closures and surveillance. Section N2N of Disaster Management Act empowers the National Executive Committee to give directions to the concerned ministries or departments of the Government of India, state governments and even state authorities regarding measures to be taken by them in response to any threatening disaster situation. Section 51 of the same act prescribes punishment for obstruction against whoever, without any reasonable cause, refusing to comply with the directions issued by the Government. And as per Section 71 of the DMA, no court, except for the High Courts and Supreme Court, shall have jurisdiction to entertain any suit or proceeding in respect of any Government order issued under DMA. So in terms of Section 72 of the DMA, the act shall have overriding effect, not withstanding anything inconsistent with any existing law, which means that any law that prevails in the General Times will not apply if DMA has been involved. So we'll now navigate through certain advisories, orders and notifications issued at various levels with respect to specifically employers that has an impact on employees' health, safety and other employment-related assets. So Department Order Letter of March 20th, issued by Ministry of Labor and Employment, which is advisory. So in terms of the advisory issued by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the public sector and private sector employees are advised to extend their cooperation by ensuring not to terminate their employees, particularly casual or contractual workers, from job or reducing their wages and considering them as being on duty. And if any worker takes leave during the subsistence of the outbreak in India, he should be deemed to be on duty without any consequential reduction in wages. And if the place of employment of employer is- Mr. Neerich, I'm really sorry to stop you, but your voice is very low. Can you please either talk a bit loudly or just adjust the mic once? Yeah, is it louder now? Yeah, if you can just speak closely. Thank you. So in terms of the advisory issued, the private sector and public sector employers have been asked not to terminate their employees in all categories or reduce their wages considering them as being on duty. And if any worker takes leave during the subsistence of the outbreak, he should be deemed to be on duty without any consequential reduction in wages. And if the place of employment of the employer is non-operational, then the employees and workmen of such employment will be deemed to be on duty and be eligible to receive full wages or salaries. Ministry of Labor issued another notification with preventive measures to be taken to contain the spread of novel coronavirus and prescribed the health and safety conditions that each employer has to provide within the premises. Even Ministry of Home Affairs on March 24 and March 25 issued certain orders for containment of COVID-19 epidemic. And they specifically said that all commercial and private establishments needs to be remained closed except for the exempted establishments. And time and again, they have been increasing the number of establishments that can remain open during this lockdown period. And they have directed all employers, including industry, shop or commercial establishment, to make payment of wages to their workers on the due date without any reduction for the period their establishments are being closed due to lockdown or even if they are working as exempted establishment. And even directs the land loss, providing rented accommodation to workers or migrant workers not to demand payment of rent for a period of one month. And also suggested the closed establishments to undertake work from home facility wherever it is feasible. Now let us understand the new terms that have suddenly become part of our professional lives. So the first such important term is lockdown. The lockdown until May 3 has been announced in accordance with the Disaster Management Act. Except for the exempted establishments engaged in the manufacture of essential commodities of provision of essential services as listed in the guidelines, all other establishments are required to be closed down. Most of the state governments have issued notifications providing a detailed clarification on the scope of essential services and the permits or compliances required to continue the operations. In order to stay operations during the lockdown, employers of establishment should be specifically exempted or excluded from the lockdown either by central government or state government. That present only the establishment providing essential services have been excluded from the lockdown. The employees working in such establishments are provided with passes or approved letters that allow them to travel to work during the lockdown period. And state governments have their own prescribed formats to issue these passes or letters. The second crucial term that we encompass now is work from home WFH. The concept of work from home is not new among Indian businesses. Even employment statutes have not addressed the concept of work from home so far. So the onus has been put on the employer to ensure that the employees are not directed to be physically present in the workplace. It is also to be noted that the order prohibits an employer from opening any promotion private or industrial establishment and recommends providing that work from home facility to all employees whose duty is such that can be discharged from home. The employers have the flexibility. Mr. Neeraj, the audio is still very low. I don't know the reason for that. Like everyone is requesting you do speak just a little bit loudly. I'm the closest to the mic as possible. I'm sorry I don't know what the issue is. Now whatever saying that work from home concept has not been addressed to Indian labour laws or employment structures. So the employers have been asked to ensure that the employees are not directed to be physically present in the workplace and formulate work from home policies. An employee cannot refuse to report to work when the employer is permitted to carry on operations unless the minimum standards of health, safety and hygiene to contain the epidemic are not followed by the employer. And the employers have the flexibility to specify their own guidelines for work from home. However the statutory provisions relating to working hours or overtime payment shall continue to apply to the employees as if the employee has been working from the office premises. Now the third important concept is leave management. Under the current situation the lockdown have been implemented and the establishments are closed. The absence of employees from work cannot be adjusted towards any paid or unpaid leaves. However if the establishments are voluntarily closed in absence of specific orders from government, the employers and employees can mutually agree on adjustment of paid or unpaid leaves. In the event an employee is affected by COVID-19 and requires sickness leave, the prescribed number of sickness leaves under the applicable law can be availed. In the event where the employer is allowed to work during the lockdown, but the employee is unable to work due to the requirement of self quarantine because of his personal travel or office travel and coming into contact with an infected person, the employer may possibly require the employee to take his or her annual leave or sick leave subject to any specific government notification. However if the employee had to travel because of work or came in contact with a sick person, the employer may be able may not be able to force the employee to utilize his or her sick or annual leave. In states like Karnataka the employers are required to provide a longer duration of sickness leave to employees who have contracted COVID and if the sickness continues beyond such number of leaves, other leaves like casual leaves or early leaves can be utilized thereafter. If the event of prolonged illness or employees can be provided unpaid leaves for the required duration, unpaid leaves only, if an employee is required to administer self quarantine as a consequence of discharging his official functions, such employees should be provided with paid leaves for the same. However, if the employee is required to do the same due to his personal action, they can be directed to utilize their outstanding leaves for the same. Now the concept of salary, how it has undergone the change. The central government and state governments have prescribed that employees of any unit would be deemed to be on duty if they are non operational during the lockdown period. And as per the advisory and order, the employer has been advised to deter from deducting the salaries of employees and not to deduct wages of workmen during this period of lockdown. In the event that employee has traveled on duty and is unable to return due to the outbreak of COVID-19, it is advisable for the employer to pay salaries and other benefits to such employees. All outstation employees should be considered on duty. Since the lockdown orders have been issued under epidemic act, there can be serious consequences if employers do not follow this advisory. As far as the wages are concerned, which is stable to workmen and workmen has been defined under the industry dispute act to include any person employed in an industry to do manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work, but excludes people employed in managerial administrative capacity or supervisory if they draw more than 10,000 permits. So keeping that in perspective, an employee has the option to negotiate the wage settlement agreement with the union if they have any and they are directed not to deduct wages, but of course they can take all action or initiative to not increase any wage by engaging into another wage court settlement agreement, termination. Now the central government has issued a circular stating that if the place of employment is made non-operational, the employees will be deemed to be on duty and any decision with respect to termination has to be taken after analyzing the consequences under these notifications, instructions and orders. The provisions of general employment laws, employment agreement, employment agreement, work order, wage settlement agreement has to be seen in light of the Disaster Management Act only. Layoff. Now with respect to workmen, companies have the option to exercise layoff but for that they need to put the employees on layoff for at least 45 days and pay 50% of the wages and simultaneously approach the government for retrenchment of the employees and upon receiving approval from the government, they can retrench the employees and pay the necessary compensation as the appropriate government prescribes. Now with respect to medical tests and expenses, in all the exempted establishments which are operational during lockdown, the employers can test the employees after obtaining employees prior consent and should have a data privacy policy in place. Employers should test temperature with contact less thermometers if available and individual conducting tests should be adequately masked and sanitized. The test results should remain confidential and if an employee has a high temperature, shows other symptoms of COVID refuses to provide consent to be tested, the employer may bar the employer from working based on the employer's obligation to provide a safe workplace for the employees and the employer can inform the government of India through the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Helpline number if any employee is showing any symptoms. The government has also clarified in a notification that the employer during the lockdown period, no employer will be tired for any COVID positive cases if found in their establishments. So there has been certain rumors going around in social media, the government has clarified that position. However, the establishments will be bound by the social distancing norms and the standard health protocols prescribed and that is something which cannot be neglected or avoided at any point of time. Now the other important aspect is what happens to the existing proceedings under labor laws. Due to outbreak of COVID, all proceedings and labor courts have been halted and all matters scheduled to be heard from March 25th onwards have been canceled by the labor courts. Additionally, the high courts have also suspended all matters till the end of the lockdown and they have extended the state orders and directions on the interim orders in spite of the expiry of the period. Any inquiry or proceeding that is ongoing within the company, say under industrial dispute act for any harassment or under prevention of sexual harassment under for sexual harassment, they all can continue if they can through video conferencing. However, since physical proceedings cannot take place until the end of the outbreak, the employees may consider undertaking such proceedings after the lockdown is over. But during this lockdown period, if they can, they should continue the proceedings with video conferencing and whatever be the outcome of the proceeding should be communicated to the parties and ensure that the status quo is maintained until the outbreak of the COVID is over and after the lockdown, the decision should be implemented. Now the last thing is with respect to the usage of biometrics. There are no guidelines or orders issued which suspend the usage of biometrics by employees and in the exempted establishments, people can use biometrics provided the sufficient health and safety measures are being used. Irrespective, the suggestion would be that employer can recommend to suspend the usage of biometrics during this period and this should be done only in light of maintaining health and safety of its employers and further spread of the COVID. Now having said all this with respect to all these key situations, it is very important to understand that what if somebody goes ahead and files a case against the order issued by the government to pay salaries and wages and not deduct anything and even not terminate the employer of employees. So this has been done in the recent past during the lockdown period. A petition was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the orders passed by the Ministry of Home Affairs and specifically Maharashtra government ordering payment of salaries to workers amid COVID-19 lockdown and with respect to the petition, the petitioner had concluded that with the lockdown now being extended, its losses will be multiplied. If the company has to observe these said government orders in entirety, its business will become unsustainable. The orders will have more far-reaching consequences affecting the livelihood of more people than just the people whose salaries have been deducted or employment terminated. The petitioner asked the court to set aside the orders of Ministry of Home Affairs and order of Maharashtra government to the extent that the payment of full salaries was mandated. This order is yet to be heard by the court. However, in another petition filed in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of all the government notification issued by Ministry of Labor and Employment and has categorically stated that during the period of lockdown since orders have been issued and notifications have been issued under section 51 and 58 of DMA, government can initiate action against all companies who violate the directives under these orders. The petition makes a case for the welfare of employees by stating that mass termination of employees and the withholding of their salaries during these severe times is contrary to public policy and directly affecting the right to livelihood of several persons. So, it is very important that the status quo is maintained and no employee should lose their employment or their salaries deducted. Now, we are also simultaneously seeing the trend wherein a lot of companies are terminating employment and are also reducing wages and those actions are totally against the directive issued by the government. So, if there is any complaint by the employees or workmen of those companies, definitely government of India and the state respective state governments or the local labor commissioners will act against those companies. Now, what happens if because of any economic hardship, the company has to undertake such a decision, take such a call. There are certain essential principles that needs to be followed to establish Bonafide so that whatever action the government would take, if a complaint is filed, the company would have some ground to safeguard its address to prove its Bonafide intention while terminating employment of any employee if it is incumbent plus to reduce the wages. So, if I have to tell you a few principles, the first of course, this is the appraisal time and all employees are being evaluated for their work. So, it is very important to evaluate it honestly and see if you are terminating an employee purely based on performance and not performance as on date but performance of the past. The entire last financial year or a few years and the employee was also kept on PIP performance improvement program but could not improve his or her performance then that becomes a valid ground of termination. So, that is something that can be taken as a valid ground of termination. However, not during the lockdown but immediately after the lockdown that can be initiated. Even any employee found guilty of any misconduct, harassment or sexual harassment can be terminated as per the prescribed company policy immediately after the lockdown. Now, apart from this, there are certain other notification issued by other ministries and government bodies. The first is from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs which has clarified that the expenses met by the companies or employers relating to promotion of healthcare including preventive healthcare and sanitation and disaster management will be considered a CSR expense under corporate social responsibility. And MCA has also clarified that any contribution made to the PM cares fund shall qualify as CS expenditure under the Companies Act. The insurance and regulatory development authority of India, IRDA, by a circular of March 4th had clarified that cases related to COVID-19 are going to be expeditiously handled in order to alleviate hardships caused to the policy builders. The Employee Providence Fund, Government of India, to a press conference of March 26th decided to contribute to the Employee Providence Fund on behalf of both employer as well as employee, employer in establishment employing up to 100 employees out of which 90% should be withdrawing less than 15,000 salary. The Employee State Insurance Corporation by a notice of April 13th has extended the deadline for contribution by employer towards employee ESI for the month of February until May 15th. And EPFO has by circular dated 15 April provided a grace period of 30 days from April 16th to May 15th for filing little chronic chill-on come return in respect of the wages disbursed in the month of March 2020. So these are some key compliance requirements and extensions provided by various departments and ministries specifically with respect to labor and employment. That's it from my end. If you have any questions, you can note it down and over to you Somali. Thank you so much Mr. Neeraj for your session. Thank you. And yes, everyone who wants to ask any questions, please take the next two minutes to tie them down in our Q&A section and we'll get back to them at the end in our Q&A round. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. So I would now like to introduce our next speaker. He's into practice for a decade and has worked on various commercial litigation matters with a focus on insolvency, arbitrations and shareholder disputes. He has been representing various public limited companies and is also in panels counsel for the government of Delhi. Please welcome Mr. Advocate Angad Mehta. Welcome Mr. Angad. Hi. Am I audible? Okay. I'm just going to start off and the topic for my discussion today is the impact of COVID and its relation to four majors. So I think there is going to be a lot of questions and some clarity is needed on this. Okay. So to begin, as we all know, obligations between parties are governed by their contracts and generally the way the courts have looked at obligations is they've helped contractual obligations to be absolutely sacrosanct. But can you just make your screen on a slideshow? Yeah, is that better? Okay. Right. And as I was saying, the rights and obligations which are contained in agreements and contracts have thus far helped to be absolutely sacrosanct. And there is a very limited deviation which has been permissible from rights and obligations which are contained in contracts. Now outside of the contracts legislatively, the rights and obligations are also extensively contained in the provisions of the Indian Contract Act of 1872. One of the main exceptions to performance of obligations under contracts is force major. Now force major is not something that is completely new. It is something that has existed since the 19th century and it has its evolution in French law. So force major is essentially a French phrase and it means a superior force. This is something that has evolved out of common law that is not statutory law. It was subsequently codified and put into statutory law through various enactments. The first case that actually came up and dealt with this issue of force major was the case of Taylor versus Caldwell which was in 1863. It's a British case and it was quite interesting because the facts of this case was that an event was to be organized in music hall and a fire destroyed that music hall. Now in spite of the destruction of the music hall, the organizer wanted to pursue the contract and he sued for enforcement of the agreement. Now the law that has evolved out of this particular case and which has more or less stringently been upheld is that the circumstances which are beyond a party's reasonable control and compete or render the performance of its obligations impossible is what qualifies as a force major event. Now prior to the decision in Taylor versus Caldwell, there were no force major clauses contained in contracts and the court's general view was that the contracts had to be strictly adhered to no matter what the implications of that were. India, since it has followed the British system, has largely also followed that particular line of thought. However, with the evolution of markets and globalization, there's been a gradual dilution in rights, duties, obligations and performances of contracts. One of the ways in which this dilution has developed is the evolution of force major clauses. Now by and large, force major clauses are divided into two aspects. One is a natural force major clause which as you can see covers floods, earthquakes, riots, epidemics, natural calamities, etc. The second one is our political force major clauses such as acts of terrorism, riots, embarras, changes in law, changes in government. Now these political force major clauses are relatively new in the sense that this has developed with the advancement of technology and globalization. Now as you can see the force major clauses originally of course were fairly simple but force major clauses have now evolved with the times and they have gone on to become more and more complex. Now I have extracted for you over here a sample force major clause which says that neither party shall be liable for any costs or damages due to or for failure or delay in the performance of its obligations arising out of or cause directly or indirectly by forces beyond its control including without limitation so and so. Now it's important to remember that a force major clause in a contract ordinarily should be drafted in the broadest possible terms and it's important to have words like without limitation because this is an indication of how broad a force major clause can actually be. Earlier on force major clauses were extremely restrictive and parties were held to be limited only to the particular circumstances or events which are contained in those particular force major clauses if they wish to step up relieve themselves of their bargain in the contract. Now like I had said this is an other force major clause which has which I have extracted now if you can see for the second half of this clause it reads for the purposes of this clause force major means an event beyond the control of the contractor and not involving the contractors form now largely the way in which the law on this aspect has developed is that events and circumstances which are beyond the reasonable foreseeability or the reasonable control of the parties in question is generally viewed as a force major event. So what is the implication of a force major event that can that can either be contractually provided for and if it is not contractually provided for then of course one has to resort to certain remedies which are available under the Indian contract act. Now sorry just to take you back to the previous slide if you see one one event that flows out of a force major clauses that it allows for a suspension of obligations but you have to remember that this suspension of obligations has necessarily to be contained in your force major clause itself the Indian contract act itself does not allow you for suspension of obligations on account of a force major event. Okay moving on to how to establish a force major event now it needs to be remembered that establishment of a force major event is not only very cumbersome but the burden of proof is also extremely high. The person who wishes to claim a force major event is generally the person who has the onus of proof of proving such a force major event lies on the person who asserts a force major event and who seeks to rely on that force major event to renege from his contractual obligation. One of the other very important aspect that one has to consider while dealing with force major events is duties of parties to mitigate or minimize their losses which arise out of force major events like for example suppose in a road construction project a road gets the particular platform in which the person is working the road gets flooded and the contractors unable to perform its obligations. Now one of the requirements that the party that the contractor will have to do is not only intimate the employer that listen this force major event has arisen but it is also immediately going to have to start minimizing its losses that is cut out its overheads cut out its labor costs cut out its recurring plant in machinery costs so it is not sufficient part nearly to assert a force major event it is also important for a party to minimize and mitigate the losses that are resulting from that force major event. Now coming to the important part of this presentation is COVID-19 a force major event or not. Now there are a couple of tests which determine what a force major event is as you can see I've highlighted three of them three of the most important ones which are one was the event reasonably foreseeable two was the event beyond the reasonable control of the parties and three what is the directness or the remoteness of impact of the particular force major event on the contract and the performance of a party's obligations. Now insofar as COVID-19 is concerned of course there were signs in end December and then there were more visible signs in January 2020 so it is possible to sort of argue and say that COVID-19 was the impact and the scale of COVID-19 was reasonably foreseeable for parties however that takes us to the next question is that if the threat and the scale of COVID-19 was reasonably foreseeable what is it that the parties could have done about this? Now there have been several notifications starting from early February 2020 that the government itself has issued with regard to force major the earliest of these notifications came on the 19th of February and was issued by the Ministry of Finance and this was regarding the destruction in supply chain where the government has categorically stated that the COVID-19 pandemic would be classified as a force major event however you need to remember this is a government circular and it may not go on to have application in private contracts between parties. The second such notification that came out was on the 20th of March 2020 which was issued by the Ministry of Renewable Energy this again was in relation to the destruction in supply chains and the Ministry of Renewable Energy has categorized the impact of COVID-19 as a force major event. Thirdly there was a notification issued by the Ministry of Shipping which is on the 31st of March 2020 this again has while not definitely categorizing COVID-19 as a force major event it has sort of suspended the collection of demarrage ground rent and other charges which are which are collectible by ports so that as we can see is certainly an impact of COVID-19. Then we have a circular and notification issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Now this is also important because it's similar to the notification which is issued by the Ministry of Shipping. Now what the Ministry of Road Transportation and Highways has done is they have also issued in order for suspension of toll collection. Now this becomes extremely important because there are a category of contracts for road construction and toll collection where there is a minimum where there is requirement for a minimum remittance to be made to the National Highway Authority of India. So now that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has issued this notification suspending toll collections that certainly has a direct impact on the contractual obligations of toll remittances and I will come to how that plays out just shortly. Now in India the way the courts have actually looked at force major clauses has been extremely restrictive. Now unless the contract otherwise otherwise provides for an extremely elaborate and broad force major clause courts have been reluctant to allow parties to not perform their obligations purely on the grounds of force major. Now force major is generally contained in two sections of the Indian Contract Act which are sections 32 and section 56. Section 32 deals with contingent contracts whereas section 56 of the Indian Contract Act which is where the crux of force major really lies deals with impossibility of performance. Now the manner in which the courts have interpreted section 56 of the Indian Contract Act starting from the 1960s all the way down to all the way till as late as 2020 April 2020 there's a recent judgment by the Supreme Court. The courts have been have held the threshold of section 56 of the Indian Contract Act to be extremely high. Now one because it deals with impossibility of performance. Now one of the questions that has been recurring is what is the impact of COVID-19 especially section 56 and frustration of contracts and impossibility of performance on lease deeds. Now these particular issues have already come up before the Supreme Court and it has been elaborately dealt with in numerous decisions but the line of thought has been largely the same that is the a force major event does not excuse a party from the performance of its obligations unless that force major event is of such nature that it absolutes absolutely erodes the entire understanding or the basis of the contract between the parties. So what what has been the general thought of the courts is that unless the fundamental basis of the agreement that the parties have executed is altered parties irrespective of the force major events will be held to be bound by their contractual obligations. Now it is also interesting to note that the courts have also not excused parties from their financial from their contractual obligations on the grounds of financial hardships. Now this assumes importance especially in these times because as someone had indicated the markets are in a complete turmoil there is no income being generated and therefore how are people required to pay their leases or salaries as far as salaries are concerned of course there are numerous government notifications but as far as leases are concerned this actually becomes a cause for concern because this will perhaps we need to look at again at least the Supreme Court decisions that have earlier dealt with the leases and holding them not accountable to force major events will seriously now in the present circumstances need to be reconsidered. What we also need to consider when we are resorting to force a force major clause in a contract or section 56 of the Indian Contract Act is the link between the obligation or the contract and the force major event. Now one of the fundamental principles that we need to understand is that the force major event has to have a direct impact on the obligation that is being performed. Now for example if you just have the previous point on this very slide construction contracts and road development contracts where say a flood destroys the entire road in such circumstances the force major clause or section 56 of the contract of the Indian Contract Act can be involved because the fundamental basis for the contract itself has fallen away that is the construction of the road and therefore it is impossible for a party to perform its obligation. In these circumstances a force major section 56 of the Indian Contract Act could be involved. Now as I had indicated earlier a lot of how force major events are to be dealt with have actually to be determined by the contract itself. Now the contract itself you cannot read a particular force major clause in a contract independent of the contract in which it is steeped. Now for example if we have say an IT contract this the present COVID-19 may not impact an IT contract as much as it would impact a toll collection contract or a construction contract. Now what has by and large been provided for in a lot of agreements and is a suspension of a party's obligation on account of force major. However generally while there are certain classes of contracts which allow for termination a complete termination of obligation contractual obligations by and large what is provided for or even what the law stipulates Indian Contract Act and judgment stipulate is that a party may be exempted or suspended from the performance of its obligations for as long as that particular force major event continues. Now there are certain practical issues that actually arise with regard to COVID-19 because at the moment there is absolutely no certainty as to how long this the pandemic or the lockdown is going to continue for. So in that sense this particular aspect while it has not yet been considered will certainly need to be looked at by the courts and in particular one needs to look at the force major clauses which are contained in the contract and see if one can interpret it in the broadest possible manner. Now coming to recent the how the courts have recently interpreted force major contract force major clauses in various contracts there has been since March since the end of March 2020 there has been a spate of litigations which has arisen which spate of commercial and financial litigation especially which has arisen which has involved the invocation of bank guarantees letters of credit etc. Now there seem to be divergent views on this issue because the Delhi High Court in about two or three judgments passed recently has actually qualified the current pandemic as a force major event and has on that ground restrained the invocation and encashment of bank guarantees. The issue of suspension of leases has not yet arisen and will of course have to be will need to be looked at as and when the case arises. But it's interesting to note the divergent views because whilst the Delhi High Court has of course allowed for non has restrained the encashment and of bank guarantees the Bombay High Court has actually taken a diametrically opposite view and held that the the pandemic and COVID-19 being purely temporary in nature cannot qualify as a force major event. What the Bombay High Court has also further on gone to hold is that the the implication of COVID-19 is purely financial and a mere financial hardship which is resulting from the COVID-19 cannot be included cannot come within the controls of section 56 of the Indian Contract Act. Now it is also interesting to note a recent decision of the Delhi High Court on 24th of March and this is particularly interesting because what the court has done in this particular case is the court has actually rewritten the terms of the agreement between the parties. Now what had happened in this case is a certain party was importing testing kits from China and it was then reselling those testing kits in India to particular parties at a markup of about 60 at a profit percentage of about 100 to 150 percent. What when this matter went to court what the Delhi High Court has actually done is citing the backup of COVID-19 it has actually rewritten the financial terms between the two parties between the Indian parties and it has reduced the sale price from about 650 per piece to of per testing kit to about rupees 400 per testing kit and the import cost was about 250 rupees per testing kit. So what the court has actually done is it has sort of negated the the the basic principle of contracts that is what is the understanding between the parties and in view of these this particular situation of COVID-19 it has rewritten and redrafted the terms of the contract between the parties. So what actually emerges from the discussion is that force major number one is an extremely extremely subjective facet of the contract. One needs to understand like I had said earlier that given the current times perhaps force major clauses need to be interpreted in the broadest sense that there is a certain distinction also that arises in the present set of circumstances which is that all of the cases that have have arisen prior to these decisions in 2020 have largely been the force major events have largely been restricted to that particular company or perhaps a particular geographic a very small geographical location. However what we are now witnessing is a global disruption of markets a complete breakdown of contractual obligations globally not only within India or not only restricted to a particular geographical area. So the courts need to be perceptive of this particular fact and perhaps now section 56 and a lot of force major clauses need to be a lot more liberally construed now perhaps what can but however this of course will will be a subject matter of a lot of litigation and perhaps the the wiser thing for the government to do will will be to come up with a policy to deal with this that will encompass this issue and however at the same time we still need to be parties still need to be extremely careful when dealing with force major clauses as I had indicated as of now courts are extremely reluctant to be very broad minded about invocation and suspension of obligations suspension of obligations when it comes to force major so it would be wise to look to look at your force major clauses in detail look at them very carefully what I have noticed from a lot of clients that have got back to me are force major clauses that have been invoked across the board irrespective of what the contract itself stipulates or irrespective of the nature of the contract which exists between the parties to my mind one the parties have to be extremely careful when they are invoking their force major clause and you need to be absolutely aware of the pitfalls that invocation of a force major clause can entail in the long run of course parties have to be prepared for litigation to actually thrash this matter out in court and see how how their force major contractual clauses will be integrated that comes to the end of my talk and I hand it back to Sonali thank you very much a really well described talk and it was really insightful thank you so much for your time and to all the attendees please take out the next two minutes to ask any questions that you might have and yeah we'll introduce our next speaker in the next two minutes all right so I would like to introduce our next speaker here he started his practice in the year 2003 after enrollment with the bar council of West Bengal he started his own law firm in the name of skr and associates which is a full-service law firm providing legal solutions to its clients the firm offers a large portfolio of legal consultancy services mainly to the corporate and banking sector please welcome advocate Santosh Kumar who will be talking on the effect on the insolvency and bankruptcy code and recovering proceedings by the banks and VFCs welcome sir to all the attendees hope my voice is audible so today we will discuss about the impact of corona virus COVID-19 which all the entire country even world is facing the same problem so giving effect to that what would be the next effect to the business and all industries banking sector those are related with the bank customers and all we are going to discuss so let us understand why bankruptcy code insolvency and bankruptcy code was introduced that was an idea to bring systematic litigation to the national company law tribunal for quick resolution of the matter sometimes whenever we are filing cases in the court and before the tribunal and other tribunal lengthy proceeding was going on so board has decided that let us go for insolvency and bankruptcy code and which is so with a great expectation it was started and there are a lot of companies to bank get some recovery might be some lenders or maybe the borrowers face some problems those were facing problems that has been CRP proceeding resolution proceeding has been initiated and ultimately certain amounts of recovery made by the bank or even some corporate entity has been handed over to another company other corporate entities those are willing to buy that company during the course of CRP pushing now we are discussing here today what would be the effect if we go really it was very well now after this situation which we are facing entire world is facing I believe that I am discussing about our India only today so even finance minister finance minister has decided to give some facility to the banking sector for getting liquidity in the market and all so one by one I will discuss the details of the code let us go one by one so I have framed certain questions that why we will discussing here so in a question manner I am asking what suppose who who can file CRPC proceeding CRP proceeding can be filed by any individual proprietor partnership firm limited company private limited company against now there are certain category what is that that category who are the financial creditor who are the operational credit so I am just discussing little bit idea financial creditors those the loan which has been facilitated to the borrower for the purpose of gaining some interest and all that is coming under the purview of financial creditor and during the course of our business suppose we are supplying we are providing services and there are due those are coming under the operational date so for the purpose of recovery by the bank under section 7 bank and file an application before the national company law tribunal against the borrower and borrower will respond and during that period if the the borrower is paying the dues entire dues matter would be settled or in case failure adjudicating authority that is the tribunal will appoint insolvency resolution professional IRP and accordingly CRP proceeding will continue simultaneously the operational creditor also can sue against the against their customers that is called operational data for under section 9 for that reason they have to give notice under section 8 before initiating the IRP proceeding now after the lockdown on 25th march 2020 on 24th march 2020 our recent amendment has come into effect that amendment says earlier we have to file a case before national company law tribunal if the amount is due one lakh and more minimum one lakh rupees was the criteria after that after this 24th march 2020 this limit has been increased to rupees one crore minimum so this this will give some relief to the to the industrial list because they are facing some financial crisis suppose there is a 60 lakh 70 lakh 70 90 lakh 99 lakh they will get some relief it is not all the dates are more than one crore and all so now this relief can really be appreciated through that section 4 has been amended even on 13th march 2020 the code has also been amended to the effect that earlier the real estate allotee home buyers was not under the purview of this code now after 13th march 2020 they have also come under the purview of IVC code as a financial critic it's certain stipulation what was the stipulation was that suppose in a real estate project at least 100 numbers of members allotees jointly file the IRP proceeding or at least 10 percent of the allotee jointly file it to on 13th march 2020 this amendment has come into effect so home buyer has also write two initiatives IRP proceeding and this is a quick and immediate method immediately suppose after hearing the party's defense reality the adjudicating authority finding themselves that this is a fit case to admit and they are admitting it and thereafter interim resolution professional resolution professional are taking care of the entire and that way everybody is getting quick justice before NCLT now I'm also discussing little bit on November 15th November 2019 there were also a notification that personal guarantee to the corporate data are also coming under the purview of IVC code suppose a loan has been taken by ABCD company and during that period I have also signed as a maybe as a personal guarantor so I am also liable to repay the loan jointly and separately and appropriate application can be filed against me as well so these are the impact changes now after this situation COVID-19 2019 government is also deciding to suspend section 7, 9 and 10 maybe I don't know but it might be in a pipeline so government might suspend for a limited period section 7, 9 and 10 that way at least industrialist or the business community may get help of it now simultaneously if we are discussing about the banking sector how banking sector will suffer or banking sector realize their needs after this amendment you all are witness that on 25th March 2020 due to nationwide lockdown entire business and industry become a standard however RBI announced a development and regulatory policy under that policy RBI tried to expending liquidity in the system that will help that liquidity will definitely help us in the long term not only that I can also say by that circular 27th and 25th March 2020 which RBI has issued that circular as per that circular even reinforcing the monetary transmission shows that banks traded flows on easier terms and sustained to the effective due to and aging financial status caused by COVID-19 so we will think in the broader perspective that tomorrow liquidity will not be a problem as far as we are gathering so many articles so many news so many even I have attended webinar in related to infrastructure and construction it was hosted by DHB Chamber of Commerce I have participated so liquidity would not be a problem only problem is if we pass this critical sake definitely we will be successful and everywhere government is also protecting us in so many ways it is not that government is not protecting even suppose earlier prior to this COVID-19 situation what was the situation before the debt recovery tribunal if there is a dues more than 90 days it becomes NPA after that surfacing proceeding will be initiated 13 to notice is going to be given after that 13 for thereafter 13 for thereafter they are going for taking position in case borrower giving obstruction they are approaching to the district magistrate or district judge or the metropolitan magistrate for getting appropriate police permission and assistance now at least three months relief has been granted it is not your account would not be NPA it would not be declared NPA it would be declared a special mention account as a FMA so definitely after three months again we renew our business everything and hope everything would be fine so this way government is also protecting us it is not that we are not getting any relief so there is a reason after that period to my learn it another friend has also is booked about force measure clause and all all will come into effect but so far as business point of view I am discussing today so there are really NPA you have been protected by SMA so three months is this this is the three months period again three months for NPA so six months altogether we are getting six months time to to allowing bank to file a case against now so far as the other cases are concerned which has already been filed prior to that there are certain circulars in the pipeline restructuring of the loan you can approach for one time settlement that is already their OTS proposal so so many way out is there and government finance department RBI and bank banking sector are trying to protect the industry in so many ways even moratorium of term loan has been extended so this way we will say that we are lucky that in debt recovery tribunal or and CLT immediately cases would not be filed even if we are facing any difficulty in paying the debts now because this is the effect so I'm not going to discuss about details of the law and all so I'm just shortly I'm explaining that impact impact is very fine being a businessman I say I must thank them give thank you to my government that they are protecting me three months and three months altogether six months already I'm getting time even banks has been informed by the RBI might circular that they will think about how to settle the dues restructure package or there are certain requirement to the lender they will provide if the ball sorry if the borrower is seeking any further enhance of the overdraft facility definitely they will consider there there are certain rules and regulations there are some parameters and definitely that would be considered so we can say that yes we are protected it is not that COVID 2019 will take away our entire hope so again we will come back in a good situation win-win situation even I am saying sometimes our equity share market are increasing it is also between us that yes we will today or tomorrow we will definitely successful even two three days back I have heard that I have also gone through some notification that government has also allowed to use card that like a debit and debit card in overdubped this meeting overdubped account so that is also a good gesture by RBI so that is on 23rd April yes let me correct on 23rd April 2020 electronic card for overdraft account has been introduced but that is limited to the domestic fund so this way we can say that we are protected now let us discuss about the pending cases so far as pending cases are concerned hope might give some opportunity we are expecting I am not saying that maybe or may not be but hope might give some chances to the operational to the corporate data to resolve their disputes with the bank and the FCE non-ranking financial institution and other corporate banks and all to develop their business even they will provide some relief to the business entities so this way we will say that we are very much protected in every corner now let us discuss one or two more questions here I don't know until and so they have no question answer system so which area I have to speak I don't know but in a question answer session if somebody has any questions they differently put on or ask I can answer so this is a vast subject both banking surfacing and all so I don't think much more I can offer at this stage so I'll request to miss Sonali that if any other speaker are there you can ask them to speak a little bit to our audience thank you so much for your wonderful session can you hear me sir can you hear me yes yes I'm getting so I I believe that overall little because you know the changes until unless there are certain changes I can't go more deeply into the matter so in a question answer system I'll be able to speak more so anything more you can highlight I can answer thank you so much sir all the attendees out there please type in any questions that you might have in the Q&A section and we'll take all of those questions at in a Q&A round thank you so much that would be fine because I don't understand which which area I have to address so little bit I have just given idea which are the changes coming into okay I'm over to giving Sonali yes thank you so much welcome back to the next speaker in two minutes time please type in any questions that you might have right so I would now like to introduce our next speaker he holds experience in the field of labour industrial and employment laws civil and commercial laws and has an in-depth knowledge on subjects like arbitration energy environmental laws eia forest laws intellectual property rights international cyber laws information technology laws medical laws money laundering and others please welcome advocate pulkit prakash founding partner at nithi both and advocate at the supreme court of india he will be talking about the tax and finance regime in the in the era of covid-19 welcome mr pulkit mr pulkit can you hear me yeah I can you know and yeah thank you hello everyone so should I or should I not yeah of course just please start okay okay fine hello everyone and I'll be just really brief about the topic and will not drag you here and then everything is I'll just immediately say at the screen which I have with myself and then you can read it out along with myself okay so these are the list of some of the I'll go down so my topic is tax law and the finance law and I'll be briefing you out with all the laws and notification which has been passed out in the recent time period in respect to the covid-19 so I'll start with the finance law and thereafter we can come up to the tax law right so the first notification which came into that effect in respect to the covid-19 was on 4th march that was in relation to the finance law in relation to the businesses and it was says that that the guidelines to be followed by the insurance for handling of insurance claim reported to coronavirus so this was in relation to the industry which is related to insurance sector and it was been informed to them that how you are supposed to take care of the subject matters wherein people who has been suffering from coronavirus and they have come up with the claim that I've been getting treatment done from so-and-so hospital and respect to my illness thereafter on 16th march they again came up with another notification wherein it was like the operational and the business continuity of the measures to be taken by the banks and the other finance institutions such as taking stocks of critical processes and encouraging the customers to take up the digital banking facility so this was done to ensure that less number of people approached the bank and the branches to get their work done so that more and more people sat at the back at their home and do the job which is essential for them rather than coming every now and then to the bank and then wasting time and then spreading the coronavirus so these were these two notifications three notifications and some of the notifications were prior to 24th march 2020 before the lockdown was announced then this was on march 20 which says that sebi relaxed the compliance of certain obligation and disclosure requirements in view to covid pandemic such as filing of corporate governance report compliance certificate on sebi transfer facility there after on 24th march they came up with another notification saying that the sebi notified from the sebi itself so sebi notified the capital and the death market services to be exempted from the nationwide lockdown these includes the registered stock exchanges clearing the cooperation and mutual funds and among others on 27th march they came up with the notification of relaxation from the substantial acquisition of shares and takeovers regulations these regulations require the shareholders to compile colad disseminate information of other of their consolidated seirolding as on march 21st 2020 to the company and stock exchanges so this was also relaxed by 27th march on the same day another by another notification instructions were given to the bank and nvfc by the reserve bank of india on measures for easing the burden of depth servicing three-month moratorium on payment installment etc then on same day rbi released a statement on development and regulatory policies to address the stress in the financial conditions caused by covid 19 these includes the expanding expanding the liquidity in the system and relaxing the repayment pressure also same day again another notifications from the rbi which reduced the reported from 5.15 percent to 4.4 and the reverse reported from 4.9 percent to 4 percent in march 2020 due to the negative effect of the coronavirus on 28th march the relaxed the relaxation came for the insurers to submit the board approved final reassurance program tell me 31st 2020 so they were supposed to do it by 31st march 2020 only so now they are supposed to do it by 31st 2020 on 30th march they came up with the steps to be taken by insurers against for the insurance company only and is the covid 19 pandemic for the smooth functioning of insurance industry these include displaying covid 19 claims related to frequently asked questions on their website putting a place putting in place a certain business continuity plan please wait a second please wait sorry sorry so on 31st march 30th march the again came with the relaxation in compliance to requirements of foreign personal index this is this is in relation to the investment which has been done by foreign personalities into the into the industries in India and any say holding or buy back say holding all the or the angel investment or something like that was they last and any compliances which was supposed to be done to the ministry of corporate workers were also relaxed on 1st April 2020 the rbi decides that it is not necessary to implement the counter clinical capital buffer for a period of one year so this is this is a framework which aims the banking system to build up a buffer of capital in good times which may be used to maintain flow of credit in real sector in different times so what rbi wanted to do with this particular notification was to release as much fund which they have with themselves to the society and to the business in general so that every business in general get benefited out of it and no business in general face the cash cash flow or credit flow credit line difficulty on 1st May 1st April itself they again came with the press release clarification stating that the identity based health insurance products that cover the treatment cost of hospitalization should cover the cost of hospitalization treatment also on 4th April they came over with the life incidence policies whose premiums fall due in March and April and additional days of 30 days was applied so whatsoever premium was falling in March or was getting completed in March and they were supposed to pay the premium for the next subsequent period of time was again given a 30 period time to those whose premium was getting over on March they were given a time period until April those whose premium was getting closed in April they were given a time period in May on April 8 the IIDI permits the insurance to grant a moratorium for three months towards the payment of installment failing between 1st March 2020 to 31st May 2020 so what happened now over here that any person who has taken any sort of loan with themselves they were allowed to have a moratorium of three months with themselves to pay the installments and respect to that particular asset then on 13th April they came up with the related released guidelines for the prudent management of financial resources of insurance in context of COVID-19 pandemic this include the critically examining the the capital availability and solvency margin and required and devise the strategies to ensure that they have adequate capital so this was in relation to the insurance company again so that the insurance company keep on working with themselves and they keep on be be available to everyone who say what is coming up with the force misery clause I'm saying that I won't reform for that particular aspect or I won't reform for that particular aspect of the losses which I have faced in my business due to this lockdown and some support so this was necessary for the insurance sector because if they don't have the money with themselves any company or any business who has failed in their business or who has not been able to continue their business in this pandemic time period and have suffered great amount of losses and have forced misery clause with themselves and the indemnity clause with themselves to see benefit out of those indemnity and force misery clause claiming their losses before the insurance company so that they get money with themselves that they keep on working with the business right on 16th April the cv provides the relaxation in certain regulatory comments such as the client funding reporting and risk based supervision reporting for stock exchange and care incorporations on 16th April itself the cv provides a relaxation in time period for certain activities carried out by depository participants such as processing of demat request on 17th April they came up with in view of the COVID-19 the period of March 1st 2020 to May 31st 2020 we excluded from 30-day review period post which the leaders the interest had required to implement the 180-day resolution plan resolution of stressed assets so this was in relation to the NPA which sir was saying Mr. Santo sir was saying about so all the premiums which we are supposed to the EMI's which we have taken with ourselves for house loan or whatsoever loan has been deferred for a strong period of time and you have six months of period of time with yourself to come back with your EMI plans and then repay then the RBI revised the liquidity coverage ratio in form of high quality liquid assets to be maintained with the banks banks will be required to maintain 80 percent of the liquidity LCR till September 20 90 percent from October 20 to March 21st and 100 percent from April 1st 2021 onwards so this was also in to ensure that the bank have the money with themselves to support the businesses which are facing losses because of the lockdown and if they come up with the policy saying we need money to keep on this keep on running the banks may have money with themselves says that okay I have money with myself take it and cover up your losses come out of your losses and again start doing your business on the same day RBI mandated that the bank should not make any further dividend payouts from the profits of the proper financial year 2020 till further instructions this was done to ensure that the bank conserves the capital to retain their capacity to support the economy and absorb losses so what happened is that any company any bank also runs like a company and they have shareholders in that company so whoever is the shareholder if the bank is in profit and makes profit the every server will get some money with themselves so this was a stop with this notification that who's whoever is the shareholder of whatsoever bank will not be getting money from the profit earned by the fund in the financial year 2020 to ensure that the money is there with the bank only so that if someone is coming to cover up the losses take money with with themselves to keep going on they may have that money from the bank the same day the RBI announces the several additional measures to combat the macroeconomic condition due to COVID-19 these include the reduction of again the report it was reduced from 4% to 3.75% refinancing of financial institutions like Nambar, ZB and HB what a total of 50,000 kronor rupees so RBI gave 50,000 kronor rupees to these institutions so that the small MSME institutions, small and medium enterprises institutions the proprietors and those who ever are like startups who have taken loans from these institutions or who are willing to take loans from these institutions to keep on going in the business may oppose these institutions and may take money and then keep on going and keep on covering the losses with themselves which they have suffered through this lockdown on 18th April the IRDA again the insurance sector specifies the certain norms for the settlement of the health insurance claims reported to COVID-19 the norms are specified in the insurance sector and decide the health insurance expediency so this was this was done to ensure that whosoever is coming up with with the claim like I have been suffering from the coronavirus and I've been getting treatment from so-and-so institutions and hospitals and a cost of a visit has been billed to me I want those to be different because I have a health policy at myself so apart from the other health policy this to be a priority so that people may get treated at an immediate effect and it doesn't mean that other other health insurance policies were like neglected at all but then this was given priority by this modification that yes you should take care of these insurance claims more than that of any other of the cancer rates or whatsoever on 21st April the SEBI again granted certain elections systems to improve the assets of funding of corporates to capital market in your COVID-19 market this includes the reduced eligibility threshold of public market capitalization from 250 crores to 200 crores so the reduction was been ensured that any person who is coming up with the capital market regulations or capital market policy that you wanted to have the capitalization of the institution of capitalization of the sale of the business or something like that so that was reduced from 250 crores to 100 crores so that more and more people can get facilitated out of that and normal circumstances is 100, 250 crores in in these circumstances it was reduced from 250 crores to 100 crores on 21st April again the IIDA permits the insurance to collect the health insurance premiums in the installment and in view of preventing the conditions going to COVID-19 outbreak so the insurance which you have taken as a health insurance policy with yourself and if you have a premium to be paid like say let's say around 5000 rupees per month or 10,000 rupees per month you can split it down into 3000 rupees 4000 rupees as an EMI and then you can pay it to the to the the concern insurance sector and no one will ask you to say that no you are supposed to you're also supposed to pay premium to that and so on 23rd April they say we relax the buyback period restrictions for the companies in view of the COVID-19 to enable the quicker access in capital currently the regulations restrict the companies to raise capital for a period of one year from the expiry of buyback period this has been reduced to six months so there was a day again a relaxation in terms of the business so that business may keep on going the economy may keep on going and everybody come out of this situation which is which is all of a sudden has been enforced by this has been imposed upon us like anything on 23rd April the CB relaxes the regulation requiring the entities to hold ASEM currently the regulation requires top 100 companies by the market capitalization to hold an AGM within five months on closing of finance so this was also relaxed in the situation of these situations in these sort of situations on 24th April the IRDA urges the insurers to refrain from dividend payout from profits pertaining to the financial aid till further instructions to conserve the capital and view of emerging market so again the things which was happened the instructions which was given to the bank that do not pay any money in any profit amount to shareholders of your company of yourself which is a bank the same instructions was also given to the insurance company that you're not supposed to pay the dividend and the profit which you have earned in the past financial aid to the shareholders so that the money remains with the insurance companies so that they can they can clear the claim of life insurance or the post measure clauses or indemnity clause or the insurance clause on 27th April the CB reduces the brokerage turnover fees and filing fees on offer documents for the public issue right issue buyback of sales for the broker and turnover fees filing fees has been reduced to 50% for document file between June 2020 to December 2020 the benefits reduced will be passed on to investors as well so this was in respect to the all investment scheme which we have with those have invested into mutual fund scheme and if you wanted to get that mutual fund scheme be called out and to have that money with yourself to ensure that mutual fund companies have money with themselves that if the brokerage fee was reduced to 50% let's say presumed that if you buy a mutual fund of let's presume 100 rupees and over that 100 rupees two fees were supposed to be given to a broker to a broker who has sold you that policy now you'll be getting one of these to ensure that the money and if you wanted to claim that money with your from those companies they may give it to you so the last one is see so RBI announced a special liquidity facility for mutual funds of total 50,000 crore rupees so last time they informed they made a notification in respect to set B now they have made a notification in respect to mutual fund for 50,000 crore rupees funds available availed under the facility can be used by banks exclusively for meeting the liquidity requirements of mutual funds by extending loans purchase of reports against collateral funds and so on so this is all about the finance and laws by the ministry of finance and respect to finance laws and the financial situation which is going on in this country and as far as the tax law is concerned so on 24th March 24th March that there was a notification for the citizens which was the deadline of filing tax returns and other dues compliances were extended interest rate and additional charges were lowered relaxed for delayed payments so that was first notification in respect to this COVID-19 then the second notification on the same became for the businesses that the relief measures were announced by the finance ministry regarding income tax filing GST filing and the corporate affairs on 31st March ordinance were issued to extend the time limit for the various tax confliances 100% reductions were given to the to given to those who were donating to the PMKF 180G and then on 31st March itself the person for the this was for the citizens again the persons whose applications for the lower tax collection detections that source under certain certain sections are not approved can be you can use previous certificates so like for example if you have been if you have built someone and the tax deductible at source the certificate relates in relation to that tedious was not issued to you and if you have previous tedious with yourself saying that I have this my tedious certificate till this period of time I have not got this period of time you please look into this and I'm compliant with the loss of tax taxes and system in India that is absolutely okay as per this notification on 3rd March on sorry on 3rd April the notification under the ordinance of ordinance were passed to extend the time limits for various GST confliances to June 20 from March 20 similarly this was for the citizens notification allows persons whose applications for the lower tax reductions at source were not approved and then previous certificate to use similar to that of the last notification that you can use till June no issues at all then again the taxes and in taxes and on 8th April citizens this notification was again for citizens all pending income tax GST and the custom refund to be issued immediately worth around 18,000 cows estimated to reach around 50 tax 15 lakhs taxpayer so all the money which was which was there with the income tax department and in terms of calculating the tax ratio as how much money is to be refunded how much money is to be kept with the tax department as a tax payment done by the several citizens of the organizations and so forth so allocating those and calculating those the 18,000 cows was released by the government of India from the calculation of income tax and GST so that it can reach to as many people as it can and it was estimated at 15 lakh people which will get benefited out of this on 9th April the exemptions were granted from the basic custom duty and the health system September 2020 on import of ventilators mask PPE test kits and inputs used to manufacture so this was done in respect of doing so that the R&D keeps on going in respect to in respect to COVID-19 on 23rd April DGS so this is directorate for the general shipping DGS stands for directorate for the general shipping has extended the due dates for filing the tennis tax returns for the year 2020 so whosoever is involved into the import export business so his compliance has also been extended so that he can he can take care of his losses and the difficulty which he is facing in the business so on 24th April new reporting the comments related to tax audit report for the business is affecting on 1st April 2022 we kept in evidence till 31st March 2021 so this was the last notification which was passed by the government of India and from the ministry department of the tax income tax and indirect tax stating that anyone who has who has been into the business and has to give the tax audit report so on 1st April or affecting from 1st April 2020 will be will be no will not be touched till 31st March 2021 so these are the some notifications which has been passed by the government of India in respect to the COVID-19 in respect to taxes in most or in respect to the financial situation in the country and all these notifications can be can be looked on either you can go on the website of india code or you can go on the direct websites of the the ministry of tax and sorry department of tax and the ministry of finance you'll find these notifications over there you can also access the website of RBA you can find a notification over there as well and if you if you do not have the what will say very very clean hand in serving those websites then you can look to the website of PRS and other build other websites where and these bills have been maintained in the event owned by the department category etc you can go and look into them then there are some I'll read some basic direct government papers with for you I wanted to show it to you so these are some of the some of the papers which has been issued by the ministry of finance where in respect to the frequently asked questions allowed for the banks to declare the moratorium on the terms of the loans this is easily available on the website of ministry of finance and has been issued by the press information view you can go and you can get it done you can download it from there itself so there are a few questions which is related to these aspects like what was the RBA announcement why RBA announced why has the RBA announced the relief package and then which are the four facilities eligible for availing the benefits under RBI COVID-19 regulatory package and whether the facility is extended across the board to the world borrowers or not so it said that yes everyone has been covered everyone every person has been covered be it from loans from retail crop loans loans from under pool purchases soon so everyone is covered in these benefits then there was a question of is reseduling of the payment applicable to all terms of loans it was said yes yes it is applicable to everyone everyone and no one has been like left alone is reseduling the term of the loans only for the principal account or it's also in the interest and then it was said that reseduling of the principal can be done for a period of three months filling you between March 1st to 2020 to May 31st 2020 for example if it will last in term installment of a term loan first due for the payment for payment of on say 1st March 2020 it will be now as 1st June 2020 the next question was the what happens if the extended tenure of the term loan is beyond the maximum period is stipulated for a period for a product or it's stipulated for the loan policy so that can be extended also what will be the treatment of interest under working capital facilities that recovery of the interest facility interest applied for the cash credit overdraft on 31st March 31st April 31st May is being deferred so this was also deferred so if there is any interest which is which is about which you are like very afraid that interest will be accrued at at the end of the day so that was also deferred like no issues on that point also what will be the impact of this relief by RBI on boarders as far as the reporting of default is concerned so this was clarified that up to five crore uh the credit bill if if you have taken loan up to five crore for your business or for anything any person any other purposes with yourself so your credit is not when your credit trading system is not going to be effective so government is not going to give the give the data of these three months to the credit credit trading system of who ensures that who should get the loan and also not get the loan based on the previous payment instructions on something so that means that individuals would take necessarily the benefit and so on so should I get upset if the bank has get approach these are basic questions that what about what would my credit card do so this was also been exempted in terms of the credit card use if you wanted to get it exempted for the next three months you can get it exempted for the next three months what about the interchangeability being permitted from non-fund based to fund based or fund based to non-fund based so that was also interchangeably made available in other ways the business has been given relief so yes the businesses were at the request of the bank to reassess the working capital requirements on account of disruption of the cash flows or elongation of working capital cycle this may also request the reduction in margin on nfb lc lc stands for letter of credit bc bg stands for bank guarantee or also relief in security so decisions will be taken by the bank branches in case to case basis and on the genuineness of the request of course our nbfc mfi hsc eligible under easing of working capital facilities so yes that was also been allowed will all these measures of rba be treated as restructuring the measures of stipulated by the rba under march 27 2020 circular so this was made clear so your loans and your credit facilities were not restructured it was just extended for three months period of time so there was no restructuring in all together of these types of facilities what about the instruments of emi being recovered through s i e c s large and so on so that was also revised similarly ministry also find made this was also a notification made available by the ministry of finance you can go and check it out on the ministry of finance website that is easily available over there so in view of the situation the union minister and the corporate affairs made several announcements and those were first was in respect to income tax so the last date for the income tax returns were from 31st march to 30th june linking of adark and card from 31st march to 20th june we watch this was a scheme no additional 10 percent amount if we made to by 30th june and entire working in relation to we watch this process scheme was also extended to 30th june similarly the gst indirect tax when it comes to gst indirect tax they're in the aggregate last like i said that five crore was extended with no interest no late fee no penalty no nothing similarly if in the month but if you cross by june 20 then nine percent will be applicable upon you the penalty will be of nine percent instead of 18 percent that also was reduced by half despite being known that even if you cross the period of june 2020 so the interest if you're supposed to pay that has to be reduced from 18 to 9 similarly the date of opting the composition of the scheme was also extended filing was also extended to june everything was extended till june subcavis versus scheme was also extended to june so customers made available custom clearance was made available till 30th june 24 7 no issues due date of recent mortgages and so everything was also every compliance was also extended till 30th june the financial services were relaxed in three months the debit card holder withdraw cash from free any ATM any bank any bank ATM anywhere any number of times you can withdraw it no charges will be able to give up on you are not supposed to maintain the minimum balance which is mandated as per the as per the saving account which you have there with yourself like for example if you have a bank account in yes bank and if your yes bank says that you have to maintain 5000 rupees minimum balance in your bank account or let's say 10,000 rupees of minimum balance in bank account so that has been also waived for the time being digital transition has to meet fee or to whether the corporate affairs in terms of corporate affairs no additional fees will be charged for the late filing from first April to 30th september so this was done till 30th september in respect to any any applications return statement document in sort of mandatory requirement of holding the meetings were also exempted applicability of companies auditors were also exempted notified significantly so as per clause 4 of the companies act independent directors are required to hold one last meeting at least one meeting without the attendance of non-independent members will not be able to hold even one meeting that was also been exempted okay so so these are entirely all those activities which has been exempted you can go and you can read on the website i have stated it for you and i'm stating it directly from the government notification to it nobody gets to go okay so someone has said in some seminar and then that is not matching with what government of india has said so that is why i'm instead of making a presentation and so on so what sir was saying just before me that the ibc was has been extended to one go initially if you have a deal of one lakh rupees with yourself someone may come up against you seeking your winding up in the in the nclt national country as per the ibc core 2016 so that one leg has been extended to one crore so unless and until you have a deal of one crore nobody is coming up against you seeking that no go out of the business enough is enough so that is not going to happen to you similarly department of these these if someone is is into the fishery industry may come up with this also the old sanitary permits and will also extend it till three months and one month arrival was also condoned rebooking was also condoned verification documents were relaxed to seven days to three days department of commons has extended the compliance procedures so these are the things which has been done by the government of india in respect to the tax and finance law so please so there is a notification also in respect to these now 21st 27th march 2020 and for the entire small bank finance locally the banks regional banks corporate banks state corporate banks district central corporate banks saying that what was supposed to do what regulatory package was supposed to do and in that in terms of regulatory package you have been they have been marked that the statement of development in regulatory process under reserve bank of india so this is also the actual notification you can go and see on the website of state reserve bank of india and you can read it on your own so they have given nine nine headers into this one is of the liquidity management is how we're supposed to do the liquidity management so can use the targeted loan term for operation then comes with the cash reserve ratio so how you're supposed to maintain the cash reserve ratio then the marginal standing facility then the widening of the monetary policy rate corridor then this is more moratorium on the term loans which was extended by three months this is determined of the interest on working capital facilities then this is easing of working capital financing then the deferment on the implementation of net stable funding ratio and then the deferment of the last branch of the capital contribution so everything was covered by the bank everything was covered by the reserve bank of india considering the situation which we are going through and with more and more and more and more money has been flushed into the market so whatever the business is keep on going nobody face any sort of difficulty then in terms of financial markets also the permitting bank to deal with the offshore and non-deliverable rupees derivative market so money which was supposed to come from the international market someone has turned into that particular aspect that was also been covered while making this notification so this was all and then the status report has been filed in the matter of I'll show the this is the status report which has been filed in the supreme court of india by the central bank by the central government in the matter of alak alak alak silvastav versus union of india and wherein they have come up with all what have they done in terms of interest state migration and so on so forth and what have they done in terms of facilitating the research and development in terms of COVID-19 what have they done in terms of minimum staff and social distancing and so forth what is more important while while reading this reply from the government of india when you will come at page 36 yes page 36 so when you'll come at the PMKL's funds so they have said that they're keeping in mind the need of having a dedicated national fund with a primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation like possessed like pushed by COVID-19 pandemic and to provide relief to the affected a public charitable trust under the name of PM citizen assistance of PM relief emergency situation fund has been set up PM is the chairman of this trust and it's include defense minister home minister and the finance minister thereafter they also explained the situations which they can which they wanted to cover and they said that the central government announced 1.7 lakh crore relief package under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan for the poor people to help them fight the battle against coronavirus and then they explained the silent features that the insurance cover of 50 lakh per health worker fighting against fighting COVID-19 will be provided this was for the doctors 80 crore rupees poor people 80 crore poor people will be provided 5 kg v to rise and 1 kg preferred pulses free of cost every month for the next three months 20 crore women and then account holders will be given a cash assistance of a face 500 per month per person although this is a less amount but then something is better than nothing eight crore eight crore poor families resisted under the scheme of Ujwala will get one gasoline per family per month free of course for the next three months money the wage to be increased rupees 202 a day from 182 which will benefit 13.62 crore families excessive financial assistance of rupees 1000 per person will be given to three crore poor citizens poor widows poor disabled government will front load rupees 2002 farmers in first week of April under the existence PM Kisan used to benefit 8.7 crore farmers wage earners earning below 15,000 per month in the businesses having less than 100 workers would be given 24% of their monthly wages into the PF account per person per month for the next three months central government has given orders to state government to use building and construction workers welfare fund to provide relief to construction workers and support 3.5 crore resistor workers NDMA has been given interacting with the state governments through the field visits meeting and the video conferences since first to first week of February on various aspects of containment in COVID-19 so this is all which has the government of India has done in terms of the tax and finance and to ensure that the economy is still running and we are in good hands and everybody comes out of this situation apart from this there is one more case which has been come up in Supreme Court of India the last week itself wherein someone has come up with a policy with a with an idea that whatever money which has been given in the PMKF fund that should be utilized exclusively for the migrant workers exclusively for those workers who have been stranded in the real estate issues or in the real estate business or in the travel industry or whatsoever industry where and they are and they are monies of the money which is supposed to be paid to them from the side of the employer shall be paid to them from the fund which has been created in the PMKF fund so it is estimated that what if the government agrees to do that 75% of the fund which has been which is there in the PMKR relief will go for that so all the employers who are responsible to pay to their employees will for the next three months and the payment will be done by undertaken by the government of India and those payment is coming from the PMKR fund provided the applicant win their case in the Supreme Court of India proves it and then union of India makes no updates and so forth so this would be all Sonali from my side I think I'm done and now you may take care I'm going to take control thank you so much Mr Pulgut for such a detailed and informative session thank you so much we'll get to the Q&A section now session now so most of the questions have already been answered by wonderful speakers so if you still have any questions that you would like to raise please type in that question in the Q&A section and I would like Mr Sahil to lead this round for us so Mr Sahil over to you if you can just lead us through the Q&A round thank you so much Sonali and thank you so much to all the speakers and to all the audience who have patiently listening to everyone and I hope the session was really insightful so I have first question specifically for Advocate Neeraj Dubey Sir can you hear me yes all right sir so the question is if an employee tenders resignation during the COVID-19 lockdown can his or her relieving be delayed till the lockdown gets over considering he or she is holding company's assets and critical information as well as in his or her position yeah so if even if the company is waiving the notice period on the request of the employee or requesting the employee to complete the notice period which would be completed within the the lockdown period or immediately after in order to secure the confidential information and property of the company the company can ask the employee not to leave the employment till such time and if the company can take such a certain approval to procure the data physically if it needs to then I don't see a possible I don't see any problem wherein that permission will not be granted there are forms prescribed to approach the local police to seek that approval and on the request the police can grant you approval one of the employees can go and collect the company data and information all right all right sir thank you so much sir so the next question is specifically for Advocate Angad Mehta sir can you hear me hello yeah hello sir yeah so sir the question is if the contract with the vendors didn't have force major clause can we still invoke it and get benefits with regards to delay in the payment to be made to them sorry could you just repeat the question sure sir so the question is if the contract with the vendors didn't have force major clause can we still invoke it and get benefits with regard to delay in the payments to be made to them uh unless well that question can be answered in two parts the first part is of course you can invoke it you can invoke section 56 of the Indian contract act citing difficulty and impossibility of performance as far as the second part is concerned is seeking shelter unless the contracts are back to back as of now courts are reluctant to grant shelter under force major but as I had indicated earlier I'm hopeful that given the current scenario and the scale of the pandemic that we are faced for that you will be given some sort of shelter all right sir thank you so much sir so the next question is specifically for Advocate Pridna Oberai ma'am can you hear me hello Advocate Pridna can you hear me yes yes yes please tell me yeah yeah so the question is do you think business struggling to stay afloat with unemployment spiking rate 23% and growth poised to shrink about five percent in the current situation will get the benefit from the anti-lockdown loans simple I believe these are the initiatives that have been taken by banks and BFCs and you know various other financial institutions to let the businesses be afloat I know it's going to be a hard time for businesses with with the kind of and this is the only way the loans being given at lower percent within you know with the very least formalities is certainly the only way to get out of the whole struggle right ma'am thank you so much ma'am so there is one more question for you is it necessary to be registered under startup india to avail csas absolutely it is mandatory to be registered under startup india you know you need to get the dpi at your registration interval all these schemes that are being offered by sid b in particular all right ma'am so I have another question for Advocate Pulkir Prakash can you hear me sir yes I can hear you all right so the question is what's the position on interest on interest being charged by banks on loans during these three months so the interest is there you have to pay the interest interest not on interest but interest is there so interest will be accumulated okay okay all right uh but then there is one more yes we just so there is a case also in respect to that and that is pending in the delhi echo that is in between the one of the board work of from the yes bank and he's saying that if you have deferred the main payment if you have deferred the interest of the main payment you should also defer the interest which is there so if if that case goes through so this interest will also go through all right all right thank you so much Advocate Pulkir thank you so much so I have a open question for all the speakers this is pertaining to labor laws of employment few employers association have filed a petition against the notices issued by the government of India can so can employers not to to not to terminate when it is difficult to run the company itself I mean the question is bit the question is like breaking into two parts the simplified form so the employees has filed a petition and like to government of India I mean like they cannot file a petition government of India if I'm just correct me please if I'm wrong so I can answer you over there in this in this aspect so what I was telling on that a week before there is a case in the Supreme Court of India wherein people have come up before the Supreme Court of India seeking the funds which has been created under the PMKF fund to be utilized for the payment which has to be done to the employees of such employers who are facing lockdown complete lockdown or are facing some sort of difficulties like for example if there is a bank at all the bank at all is not working because because no matters can happen similarly if there is a if someone is into travel industry so nobody is going to travel because of this lockdown similarly if there is someone who is into the manufacturing so nothing no manufacturing plant is working because of the because of this lockdown so that case has come up before the Supreme Court of India saying that you ensure that these money which you are saying that employers are not terminate anyone so we we have no other option with ourselves except to terminate or accept to ask them to work for free for these three months when we are not getting anything in these three months so if you're saying that no termination you also ensure that we have those money with ourselves so that we can pay to the so that's how that case has come up before the Supreme Court of India now let's see which way it goes if someone wins that case if that Union of India agrees that yes we will will release the fund which we have with ourselves in the PMKF fund for this thing only so the issue is resolved I think the issue and just to that this is Neeraj the other case Supreme Court on 27th of April also ruled on the legality of the orders issued by a ministry of home affairs and direct which directed the private enterprises to pay full wages and the court refused to stay the said orders upholding its applicability to even private establishments in the current situation which means that the orders pertaining to full payment of salaries without deductions will come will come continue to apply during the entire period of lockdown all right all right sir thank you so much so one more question what happened if we can't able to pay the complete salaries of the employees and this and the staff do you do no sales and debt burden on the company so can I answer that question so please please please short so that if if you are not able to pay that money so there was an issue in respect to two questions and from the from the corporate organization from to the ministry of home affairs that one that what if we do not pay to what if someone is found suffering from covid-19 and you make us liable for that right okay someone is who knows how he gets affected if it gets infected out on covid-19 and then you make a blame that we asked you to come to the question to to manufacturing plants or to the offices and then somehow he contacted some some disease and then some some person who was carrying this disease and ultimately he also got suffered so these were the two very specific questions from the from the corporate side that what if we do not pay and what if what if someone is suffering from covid-19 in at our place so both two one question has been answered very specifically by the ministry of home affairs that if someone is found suffering from covid-19 we are not going to punish you very clearly as far as the second question is concerned to what if we don't pay so the ministry of home affairs and and the finance report which I was reading it says that we will don't worry about the gratitude don't worry about the provident fund we will pay the entire provident fund of 24 percent on your behalf we will pay the entire gratitude also you just take care of the money which you are supposed to pay if you are not able to pay that will be a tricky situation when someone will come up before the court saying that your lordship I have not been paid how will I run my business and how will I run my household course and so on so forth that is why this case which is which I was discussing before the court before the forum that there is a case before Supreme Court of India where in people are asking that the PM care fund should be used for that particular purpose only is very crucial to figure it out that how and when that is to be used and in what manner that is to be used and ensuring that every business keeps on running because at the end of the day businesses runs the economy and if businesses are not running the economy will not run and the economy will not run then everybody is doomed everyone is doomed so I think there is a genuineness and there is some merit in that particular soup which has been filed before the Supreme Court of India seeking funds from the PM care fund only to disperse the salary to to the employees but let's see how things goes on all right all right sir so any any question from the audience any more questions so I guess one question is how to digitalize the agreements this is for advocate I suppose how to because after that only so how to digitalize the agreements in that regard so so there is a very easy way to digitalize the agreements everyone use MS word be it on the back or be it on the windows or anywhere else to draft the agreement and then we take it up we take the print out and then we go and sign it out so instead of taking a print out you use the digital signature certificate to put your signature over that and agreement is digitalized okay so I guess there's no rocket science in that just where you just put it like use digital signature rather than putting your signature by yourself so amazing so I guess one more question so again Mr. Polkit LIC premiums of March can be paid by when that can be paid in the next 30 days next 30 days so that has been further that that was supposed to be paid till today it may be extended because the lockdown is going to extend so I think that new notification will come and I believe that you'll get another 60 days to pay all right for the which was much okay any more questions guys any more question I hope like there are no more questions and maximum questions has been answered so yeah so in case you want to reach out to any of the speaker you can just go to the www.lawyer.in and find a lawyer you'll find the profile of Advocate Polkit Rakesh, Advocate Neelash Dope, Advocate Shprena Agrawai, SKR Associates and Advocate Andhra Mehta or you can reach out to Sonali and Sonali would be happy to provide us with your any further queries and the advocates will be you know most happy to answer them and also you have an option to book a meeting with them by just you know book a calendar with them on their profile and accordingly you can have a discussion with them over the call or a video call as per your convenience and I hope you all are keeping safe and making sure that you're not moving out of the houses so in case you have any further queries feel free to reach out thank you so much thank you Sonali now I would like to hand over to you again thank you so much it was it was an amazing session thank you so much thank you so much Sahil and thank you so much for to all our speakers thank you for taking out the time and being so patient and answering each and every question by the attendees that doesn't happen often to be honest so thank you so much and thank you so much to all the attendees for taking out the time to attend this webinar we hope we were able to add some value to your lives so yes if there are no further questions I guess we'll wrap up now yeah yeah that's fine thank you so much yeah bye take care bye reach out to me if you have any and I'll make sure your message goes to them if you need the recording of the session again please mail me on the same mail that you received the confirmation message on so I'll be able to provide the recording as well and yeah thank you so much please view our upcoming webinars in again all the details will again be mailed to you for our upcoming webinars we have another one tomorrow which is about keeping your company afloat during COVID-19 crisis so if you're interested in that again please reach out to me thank you Sonali and thank you so much thank you so much and thank you to all my friends including Mr. Pulkaj, Mr. Neeraj, Reir Naaz and other speakers thank you everyone thank you sir thank you thank you thank you sir thank you thank you thank you so much