The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has come out with a circular extending the time for Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) to conduct annual meetings of their unitholders and other meetings through video-conferencing and other audio-visual means till the end of December 2022.
“Accordingly, it has been decided to extend the facility to conduct annual meetings of unitholders in terms of Regulation 22(3) of Sebi (REIT) Regulations, 2014 and Regulation 22(3)(a) of Sebi (InvIT) Regulations, 2014 and meetings other than the annual meeting, through VC or OAVM till December 31, 2022,” the Sebi circular said.
Sebi had laid out an exhaustive list of guidelines and rules in the Annexure-I of its 2020 circular about the same. InvIT and managers of the REIT (as per applicability) have to adhere to these guidelines and rules in order to conduct meetings through video-conferencing and other audio-visual means.
Some of those investor-centric guidelines are:
Incidentally, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) had also month come out with a circular which had granted an extension to Indian companies holding their Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) through video conferencing or other audio-visual means till December 31, 2022.