By IIC Lakshya
04 Oct 2025
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When you are preparing for the Company Secretary (CS) Professional Level Exam, you have to follow all the details of the CS Professional syllabus. With the detailed evaluation of the groups and elective papers, students will develop significant professional skills. Let us explore the CS Professional papers and exam patterns.
Students preparing for the CS Professional exam learns a lot about companies and businesses, as there are regulatory requirements, industry standards, and laws. This way, you can learn about the various career options in Finance. Furthermore, this integrated information ensures that students and working professionals develop significant skills effectively over the year.
This is the first group where the students get to learn about the Company Secretary position, along with understanding its impact. Students who are interested in working in areas like management, finance, and governance, this an effective qualification. Let us explore more about the updated syllabus, papers, and their subjects.
The paper in CS Professional Papers covers environmental principles, principles of social and governance practices. Additionally, students also learn about risk management, the environment, and sustainability reporting.
Students will learn about different topics in this paper, called drafting and conveyancing, thus developing a better understanding of the CS Professional exam pattern. Additionally, there are other aspects to learn about topics like pleadings and appearances.
Through the paper of the CS Course and syllabus, the students will develop knowledge and deeper insights into Compliance Management. Furthermore, learn more about auditing and due diligence in corporate functions, operations, and integration.
This is the first elective paper that students need to choose, one out of four papers. Additionally, these papers suggest that students learn about corporate governance, corporate responsibility, the implementation of audits, and developing learning from laws and regulations in businesses.
In this group, student learns more about how CS professionals work in business, valuation in business, finance strategies, along corporate finance. Additionally, the following papers also help you develop professional skills. You will get prepared to apply for the best Finance jobs in the world.
As students, you will learn about topics like strategic management, which is significant to work for business growth. Additionally, students can learn about corporate finance, which is implied in business decision-making. The eligibility, scope, and form of the Company Secretary (CS) course reflect the significance of professional life.
Students will learn about corporate restructuring in business, develop an understanding of valuation and insolvency. Additionally, you get to develop an understanding of liquidation and winding up of corporate finance.
In this paper, students get to learn about various subjects that are covered in the papers below. Topics covered like the goods and services tax (GST). There are other papers discussing topics like mediation, arbitration & conciliation. Additionally, there are topics like corporate tax planning, which students need to develop their knowledge and skills.
As a student, when you are planning to prepare for the CS Professional level, the following features will help you. You can develop insights and accordingly plan your exam preparation. Below is a tabular form of the CS Professional exam pattern for 2025, which is updated by ICSI.
Criteria |
Details |
|
Mode of Exam |
Offline (pen and paper) Held twice in a year - June & December |
|
No. of Papers |
5 compulsory 2 electives |
|
Total number of Marks |
100 marks |
|
Time duration for each paper |
3 hours |
|
Passing score |
Minimum 40% in every paper 50% aggregate for all papers at the level |
When you are ready to prepare for the CS Professional exam, you need to follow all the professional updates. Additionally, it will also help students to plan their study schedules, focus on high-priority papers, and others. This detailed evaluation of papers and exam patterns in this article will guide you to become sharper in preparation and crack the exam.
The most challenging subject in the CS course is Advanced Tax Laws and Practice, as considered by most students. It is due to the coverage of difficult topics like intricate tax laws that makes it difficult for students. Additionally, the syllabus is enormous, there are periodic amendments, and the paper's complex concepts contribute to its complexity.
To complete the Company Secretary (CS) course, students will take approximately 2 years. Based on the time frame, there are three levels: foundation, executive, and professional, which you need to complete within that time.
CS applicants have the option to study the CS course; thus, Company Secretary graduates do have the opportunity to become human resource managers, executive assistants, legal managers and legal counselors.
The salary of a CS professional varies based on location, industry, and experience. On average, the salary of a fresher CS varies somewhere between INR 4 to 8 LPA.
A CS career is a stressful career by nature because there are some challenging projects in it. Especially when there are too many deadlines, learning new technologies, intricate problem-solving, and extensive work hours. There is a high possibility that you might feel burnout as a CS professional.