Corporate Governance in India

Corporate Governance is the system of processes, principles, and policies through which a company is directed and controlled, and its failure can bring down even profitable companies. This article explains why investor protection a legal concern is as well as a financial one. It examines how the Companies Act, 2013 and the SEBI LODR Regulations, 2015 give legal force to the principles of accountability and transparency. Using the collapse of IL&FS and the Satyam scandal as case studies, it shows how weak board oversight, ineffective audit committees and inadequate internal controls allow financial misreporting to go undetected, and it traces the regulatory response that followed Satyam. This article argues that India has considerably strengthened its legal framework, but that corporate governance ultimately depends on accountability in practice and not merely in rule.