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3852 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2024

Gender diversity and inclusion on Indian boards: Post the introduction of the mandate in 2015 and 2019

"Neharika Vohra, Kashika Sud, Chayanika Bhayana"

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of quota requirements on the proportion of women serving on corporate boards in India. By examining not just the numbers but also the composition of women directors, including their profiles—age, education and professional experience, directorship type, appointment nature, industry representation—as well as patterns in their participation in board committees, compensation, tenure, and reasons for leaving, the study aimed to understand the extent to which boards have leveraged the presence of women on boards. The study includes all 1944 National Stock Exchange (NSE)-listed companies to whom the mandate applies. The results show an increase in the number of women on boards after the quota mandate; however, there is also a rise in the same women serving on multiple boards around the date of compliance to the quota mandate, suggesting symbolic inclusion of women on boards. Symbolic management was also evidenced in a few women holding chairperson positions, and proportionately, women’s leadership in committees such as audit committees being lower than their board presence. This research offers insights into the actions of Indian corporates to comply with the mandate and yet uphold the status quo, thus being symbolic in meeting the mandate.

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Working Papers | 2024

Re-evaluating Corporate Purpose: A Critical Assessment of the Indian Stakeholder Governance Framework through a Historical and Comparative Analysis

M P Ram Mohan and Astha Pandey

In the last century, the meaning and interpretation of the purpose of the corporation has undergone a succession of ideological shifts. Corporate purpose has become the prime focus of wide-ranging debates over the shareholder primacy versus the stakeholder primacy conceptualization of the corporation. While this debate is not new, in recent times, stakeholderism and its enduring viability as a theory of the corporation has gained considerable traction. At the same time, shareholder primacy and its explanatory power as a valid theory of contemporary organizations is being increasingly questioned. The current Indian legal and regulatory framework governing corporate purpose embodies stakeholderism. In sharp contrast to this, the Anglo-American corporate law framework can be characterized as predominantly shareholder-centric. This article seeks to contribute to contemporary discourse on the theorization of corporations by evaluating the stakeholder-oriented corporate purpose framework adopted by India. In doing this, it examines the historical trajectory of the doctrine of corporate purpose in the U.S., the U.K. and India. This comparative analysis provides an opportunity for enhancing discussions on corporate purpose in comparative corporate governance scholarship given the common law heritage of these jurisdictions and the differences between them in terms of ownership patterns, governance structures and philosophies that have guided their experience with corporate purpose. Broadly, this article makes the following arguments: (i) tracing the evolution of corporate purpose demonstrates that there is a need for its re-evaluation; and (ii) despite adopting the pluralistic form of stakeholder governance, the Indian framework governing corporate purpose is lacking in certain fundamental aspects. The article also proposes certain areas for further scholarly investigation to inform the re-evaluation of corporate purpose and the direction of comparative corporate governance scholarship.

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Working Papers | 2024

The Supreme Court of India's Use of Inherent Power under Article 142 of the Constitution: An Empirical Study

M P Ram Mohan, Sriram Prasad, Vijay V Venkitesh, Sai Muralidhar & Jacob P Alex

The Constitution of India under Article 142 grants the Supreme Court of India with broad inherent powers to do complete justice. The contours of this inherent power and what it means to achieve complete justice were left to the Supreme Court to determine itself. In this paper, we empirically examine all the Supreme Court cases from its inception in 1950 till 2023 which use the term "Article 142" or "Complete Justice" We found 1579 cases, which were then hand-coding for many variables such as the nature of the case, where the case was appealed from, the temporal distribution, the laws involved, the nature of the issue, the judges involved, among others. The paper examines when and how the Supreme Court wields its inherent powers, generating various insights and exploring trends.

Revised and updated on May 2025:

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Journal Articles | 2024

Conceptualizing "systemically important technological institutions" as too big to fail entities: Moving the insolvency goal post

M P Ram Mohan, Sai Muralidhar K

The concept of Too Big To Fail (TBTF) has, for a long time, been associated with systemically important banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions. The emergence of Big Tech companies, which permeate global markets, challenges the traditional notions of TBTF. Big Tech companies’ growing size and interconnectedness to the global economy have led to concerns emerging in the domains of antitrust law, data privacy laws, and financial stability. A key facet of financial stability regulation is the development of robust insolvency resolution frameworks to deal with potential failures of TBTF companies. This Article analyses whether Big Tech companies pose systemic risks to the financial system and the broader economy and, consequently, if they are TBTF, should there be special insolvency resolution frameworks akin to other systemically important institutions. The systemic risks Big Techs pose today may be substantially higher than traditional TBTF firms due to their deep interconnectedness with financial institutions. The Article explores the concept of Systemically Important Technological Institutions (SITI) and the challenges in designating them as TBTF.

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Working Papers | 2024

Multi-Duty Structures in India’s Gold Import Policies: Evidence of blatant flaws using Trade data of 2023-24

Sundarvalli Narayanaswami and Anumeha Saxena

Policy initiatives to manage gold imports in India have historically relied on the use of customs duty. However, the presence of a multi-duty structure essentially offers gold traders a legal channel to re-route imports with little risk of punitive action. In this paper, we present multiple instances from FY 2023-24 where importers have significantly exploited these loopholes to import at lower rates. We also observe that exhaustive identification of alternative routes that traders can potentially exploit is infeasible. Reactive interventions to curb the traders taking advantage of the loopholes or gaps in policies are also not helpful in the long run. Traders are quick enough to snoop out the best possible channels to maximize their outcomes, which systemically leads to uneven playing fields for different types of traders. Subsequently, we show that the use of multiple taxation structures as a tool to contain Current Account Deficit (CAD) and to facilitate a level-playing market for importers of various sizes, in-fact is counter-effective. Traders are able to quickly discover more loopholes and are able to legally increase their import volumes at lesser imports duty. The current multi-duty structures to manage gold imports and in turn, India’s current account deficit, continue to be weak. To curb such unintended discounts and imports arbitrage in the domestic gold market, it is recommended that a single import duty is levied on all variants of the precious metal.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Political mobilization of farmers in India: A case study of Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) in Punjab

P H Shyam, Naresh Singla, Sukhpal Singh

Growing agrarian contradictions and peasant protests globally are seen as outcomes of the commercialization of agricultural production systems. The Indian Punjab is one such site that has also witnessed a high degree of agricultural commercialization, and farmers’ movements and protests are attributed to growing discontentment among peasantry due to the emergence of agrarian crises. This has led to massive farmers’ movements and protests through their unionization over time. These protests received global limelight during the introduction of three farm laws by the union government of India in 2020, which were repealed in 2021. This necessitates understanding the organizational structure and functioning of unions; their social composition, mobilization strategies and role of gender. This article examines the evolution and strategies of Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan, ekta meaning united), which is the largest farmers’ union in Punjab and one of the largest in India. Using a mixed-method approach of research, which included interviewing union member farmers and agricultural workers through a semi-structured schedule and conducting focused group discussions with block presidents and executive committee members, the study finds that the unionization of farmers has accelerated the process of rural democratization. However, active persuasion of social reforms along with other agrarian issues in rural society by the unions is needed to bring social inclusiveness to make rural development process pro-poor and inclusive.

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Working Papers | 2024

An Empirical Analysis of ‘Scandalous’ and ‘Obscene’ Trade Marks in India

M P Ram Mohan, Aditya Gupta and Vijay V Venkitesh

Morality-based restrictions on trademarks have gained widespread acceptance since their statutory recognition in 1875, appearing in the domestic statutory language of 163 out of 164 WTO member states. Building upon earlier conceptual work, this study empirically examines the administration of India's iteration of moral-based trademark limitations, which prohibit the registration of scandalous or obscene marks. Expanding on a prior anecdotal and purposive study, the authors create a novel dataset to analyze the implementation of the provision. The dataset examines 1.6 million trademark examination reports filed between 2018-2022. Through auto-coding, the authors identify 140 applications objected for containing scandalous or obscene matter. A systematic analysis classifies the objections into three categories - those concurrently raising relative and absolute grounds of refusal, successful circumvention of morality objections through ambiguity, and an alarming lack of objections for potentially offensive marks. The findings provide empirical evidence in the administration of morality-based proscriptions in India.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Contesting social responsibilities of business: Centring context, experience, and relationality

Premilla D'Cruz, Nolywe Delanon, Arno Kourula, Jeremy Moon, Lauren McCarthy, Laura Spence

This introduction, and the special issue on ‘Contesting social responsibilities of business: Experiences in context’ it frames, addresses the neglected question of the experience of contestation in the terrain of the social responsibilities of business. It re-conceptualises the social responsibilities of business by advancing research grounded in a relational perspective, exploring and highlighting different forms of contestation of these social responsibilities, and centring the role of context by focusing especially on contestation in overlooked geographical settings and sites of marginalisation. Contextualising contestation in this way centres silenced and/or ignored voices, generates meaningful theory, and offers an innovative critical lens on business–society relations.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Making a new beginning on farm reforms

Satish Y. Deodhar, Vijay Kelkar

Minimum support price is not tenable on the grounds of impracticality of its measurement, lack of reach, financial implications, negative externalities associated with wrong incentives, and inefficiency in its execution. Alternatively, an agricultural and food marketing council on the lines of the Goods And Services Tax Council comprising representatives of the union and state governments can be constituted. It requires creating a comprehensive mechanism of direct benefit transfer and structural adjustment programme to provide production-limiting and production-switching incentives, compensation to agricultural produce market committees for loss of revenue for some period after nationwide integration of agricultural markets, and basic income to farmers.

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Working Papers | 2024

The price of honesty: Indian firms’ response to stringent disclosure regulations

Shubhankar Mishra

Using a regulation implemented by SEBI in November 2016 as an exogeneous shock, I test whether firms with bad quality of information disclosures attempt to conceal firm-specific information when faced with a business environment marked with heightened disclosure quality requirement mandated by law for the CRAs. Specifically, the study empirically attempts to analyze whether regulation is sufficient to create a separating equilibrium, in terms of the quality of disclosures to CRAs by firms. I find a statistically significant decrease in number of security issuances and number of CRAs bad type firms engage with, as well as an increase in the number of security downgrades that they suffer in the post-regulation environment. However, the decrease in number of issues is weakened if the firm is listed, has high proportion of independent directors in its board or gets its statements audited by a Big 4 auditor, all of which signal that the firm is of a good type. These findings indicate that bad type firms strategically chose to reduce their issuances and initiate new firm-CRA relationships after the regulation to conceal their firm type, but they weren’t successful in escaping from the suffering for long.

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IIMA