Ministry of Corporate Affairs – General Circular No. 03/2025 (19 September, 2025)
During the pandemic, the MCA allowed AGMs/EGMs via VC for 2020 through General Circular No. 20/2020 (5 May 2020), applying the earlier AGM/EGM framework including e-voting and transmission of financial statements by email, while clarifying that this did not extend the statutory timeline for holding the meetings. The emergency framework led to the omission of prior restrictions on discussing certain important matters via VC/OAVM and established virtual meetings as a standard practice.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has announced that companies can continue holding Annual General Meetings (AGMs) and Extraordinary General Meetings (EGMs) through Video Conferencing (VC) or Other Audio-Visual Means (OAVM) until further notice. While the 2024 notification had capped virtual meetings until September 30, 2025, the new circular lifts this limitation entirely.
The update builds on the emergency measures introduced during the pandemic via General Circular No. 20/2020 (May 5, 2020), which allowed virtual AGMs and EGMs with e-voting and transmission of financial statements by email. Although, the initial measures were temporary and didn’t extend statutory timelines, they laid the foundation for virtual meetings to become standard and permanent feature of corporate governance in India.