Section 165 — Number of directorships

(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:
Provided that the maximum number of public companies in which a person can be appointed as a
director shall not exceed ten.
3[Explanation I ].— For reckoning the limit of public companies in which a person can be appointed as
director, directorship in private c ompanies that are either holding or subsidiary company of a public
company shall be included.
4[Explanation II.—For reckoning the limit of directorships of twenty companies, the directorship in a
dormant company shall not 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 comme ncement 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.