The government has granted a six months extension to S Balasubramanium, acting chairman, Company Law Board, and KC Ganjwal, member, CLB.

The extension from the appointment committee of Cabinet is important as the CLB was without a chairman since November 2 and Ganjwal, the only other member in the northern bench, had retired on November 26.

That had left the CLB with just K K Balu of the southern bench as a member. The CLB has a sanctioned strength of nine members.

As the National Company Law Tribunal is going to take over the functioning of the CLB, there has been no initiative to increase the number of members.

It is unlikely that new members will be added, said an official. The government hopes that the NCLT will be set up quickly as getting another extension after the expiry of six months might be difficult.

Balasubramanium was already on an extension.

The Companies (second Amendment) Act, 2002 had laid out the establishment of the NCLT and National Company Law Appellate Tribunal following which the functions of CLB were to be transferred to them.