D accepted the appointment as a director in 25 companies till 31st March 2015. Consequently, the Registrar of Companies (RoC) had issued a show cause notice to D in the year 2016. The RoC imposed a penalty of ₹ 15 lakh o

As per the provisions of section 165(1) of the Companies Act, 2013, 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. Provided that the maximum number of public companies in which a person can be appointed as a director shall not exceed ten. Explanation I - 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. Explanation II. - For reckoning the limit of directorships of twenty companies, the directorship in a dormant company shall not be included. 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. {Section 165(2)} This clearly implies that a person cannot hold the directorship in the companies more than the prescribed under law however the number can go down. Present case is similar to the Registrar Of Companies, West Bengal (Appellant) V. Karan Kishore Samtani (Respondent) (NCLAT) Company Appeal (AT) No. 13 of 2019, wherein NCLAT held that the NCLT, Kolkata Bench has failed to notice the minimum fine prescribed under Section 165 of the Companies Act, 2013 which was applicable at relevant time. Accordingly, NCLAT imposed minimum fine at the rate of ₹ 5000 rupees for every day for the period 01.04.2015 to 21.02.2016 i.e. 272 days, which came to ₹ 13,60,000. Further, the court held that the compounding fees has to be more than or equal to the minimum fine prescribed under the Act. Further, as per Companies (Amendment) Act, 2020 the penalty under section 165(6) has been revised and provides that, if a person accepts an appointment as a director in violation of section 165, he shall be liable to a penalty of two thousand rupees for each day after the first during which such violation continues, subject to a maximum of two lakh rupees. Further, Registrar of Companies may also appeal to the NCLAT against the order/judgment of the NCLT.