The new Companies Bill 2009, with stricter disclosure norms and provision for one-person corporate entity, will be tabled in the ongoing budget session of parliament, Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed said Saturday.

"We will table the new bill this session itself," said Khursheed on the margins of a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the national capital on Saturday.

A new companies bill is being re-introduced as the earlier version had lapsed because of dissolution of the previous Lok Sabha. Khursheed said the provisions in the proposed law would be in accordance with the changing economy.

The government hopes that provisions in the new bill will afford greater protection to shareholders, make disclosure norms stricter in the wake of the Satyam Computer Services scam, allow formation of one-person company and help India Inc compete more effectively globally.

At the moment, two people are required to form a private limited company and seven for constituting a public limited company.

"The attempt is to make it as unambiguous and explicit as possible," said Khursheed.

The government, he said, was also looking at pending corporate cases in courts and would devise a mechanism for speedier dispensation of justice.

"There is a need to expedite judicial verdict. We are trying to address that in the new bill," said Khursheed who also oversees the minority affairs ministry.

The minister also called for lesser government intervention in the private sector and said decisions like capping executive pay was the democratic right of shareholders.

"I think there has been too much governmental interference in the past. Let the shareholders decide what they want to do," said Khursheed.

The minister also said he was not in favour of mandatory reservation in the private sector, maintaining that the government's thrust on inclusive growth will comprehensively address the larger issue of affirmative action.

"Empowering and capacity building is the answer and not reservations," Khurshid told reporters.

"Affirmative action reaches out more than reservations. While reservations might have worked for us in the past, I don't think they are the solution for the future," he said, adding: "I am not in favour of reservations in the private sector."

Khurshid, who also oversees the minority affairs ministry, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also been talking about voluntary affirmative action by the private sector and not reservations. "We should'nt whip this horse too much," he said, when pressed further to comment on job quotas.

Manmohan Singh put job quotas in the private sector on the national agenda in April 2006 by calling on industry to voluntarily extend affirmative action. He said it was time companies acknowledged the value of diversity and broad-based their workforce.

Following that a task force was set up by apex chambers under Tata Sons director J.J. Irani, which in its report to the prime minister rejected any law on affirmative action.

"Industry believes competitiveness of enterprise and economy is not negotiable and must be achieved and maintained through knowledge and competence in this rapidly developing Indian economy," said the report.

"There are no quick fix solutions to resolve social discrimination. Industry is against quick-fix solutions. The US took 30 years to get its equal opportunity programme working."