SEBI circular on Facility of conducting meetings of unitholders of InvITs through Video Conferencing or Other Audio Visual means – January 12, 2023

SEBI, vide its circular dated January 12, 2023 in order to allow maximum participation of unit holders in a meeting and for better governance allowed Investment Manager of the InvIT to conduct meetings of unitholders through Video Conferencing or Other Audio Visual means.

Regulation 22(3)(a) of SEBI (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2014 provides that an annual meeting of all unitholders shall be held not less than once a year within one hundred twenty days from the end of financial year and the time between two meetings shall not exceed fifteen months. Further, Investment Manager of InvITs are also required to hold meetings of unit holders for certain matters specified under SEBI (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2014.

While conducting meetings of unit holders through Video Conferencing or Other Audio Visual means, the Investment Manager of the InvIT is required to adopt the following procedures in addition to any other requirement specified under the SEBI (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2014 and circulars issued thereunder: The recorded transcript of the meeting held through Video Conferencing or Other Audio Visual means shall be maintained in safe custody of the Investment Manager of the InvIT and shall also be uploaded by the Investment Manager of the InvIT on the website of the InvIT as soon as possible after the conclusion of the meeting.Convenience of different persons positioned in different time zones shall be kept in mind by the Investment Manager of the InvIT before scheduling the meeting.All care must be taken to ensure that such meetings conducted through Video Conferencing or Other Audio Visual means allow two-way teleconferencing for the ease of participation of the unitholders and the participants are allowed to pose questions concurrently or given time to submit questions in advance on the email address of the InvIT.The facility for joining the meeting shall be kept open at least fifteen minutes before the time scheduled to start the meeting and shall not be closed until the expiry of fifteen minutes after such scheduled time.Before the actual date of the meeting, the facility of remote e-voting shall be provided.Only those unitholders that are present in the meeting and have not cast their vote on resolutions through remote e-voting and are otherwise not barred from doing so, shall be allowed to vote through the e-voting system at the meeting.The chairperson of the meeting s