[Notification Date: 26.03.2014; Effective from: 01.04.2014]

Section 165- Number of directorships. [Corresponds to Section 275 to 279 of the Companies Act, 1956]

(1) No person, after the commencement of this Act, shall hold office as a director, including any alternate directorship, in more than twenty companies at the same time:

Section 165 (1) shall not apply to Section 8 company- Notification F. No. 1 /2/2014-CL.I dated 05.06.2015

Provided that the maximum number of public companies in which a person can be appointed as a director shall not exceed ten.

Explanation.— For reckoning the limit of public companies in which a person can be appointed as director, directorship in private companies that are either holding or subsidiary company of a public company shall be included.

(2) Subject to the provisions of sub-section (1), the members of a company may, by special resolution, specify any lesser number of companies in which a director of the company may act as directors.

(3) Any person holding office as director in companies more than the limits as specified in sub-section (1), immediately before the commencement of this Act shall, within a period of one year from such commencement,—

(a) choose not more than the specified limit of those companies, as companies in which he wishes to continue to hold the office of director;

(b) resign his office as director  in the other remaining companies; and

(c) intimate the choice made by him under clause (a), to each of the companies in which he was holding the office of director before such commencement and to the Registrar having jurisdiction in respect of each such company.

(4) Any resignation made in pursuance of clause (b) of sub-section (3) shall become effective immediately on the despatch thereof to the company concerned.

(5) No such person shall act as director in more than the specified number of companies,—

(a) after despatching the resignation of his office as director or non-executive director thereof, in pursuance of clause (b) of sub-section (3); or

(b) after the expiry of  one year from the commencement of this Act,  whichever is earlier.

(6) If a person accepts an appointment as a director in contravention of sub-section (1), he shall be punishable with fine which shall not be less than five thousand rupees but which may extend to twenty-five thousand rupees for every day after the first during which the contravention continues.

Section 275 No person to be a director of more than fifteen companies.

After the commencement of this Act, no person shall, save as otherwise provided in section 276, hold office at the same time as director in more than fifteen companies.