A Critical Analysis of Directors’ Criminal Liability In India

Abstract

Criminal Liability is what unlocks the logical structure of Criminal Law. Each element of a crime that the prosecutor needs to prove beyond a reasonable doubt is a principle of criminal liability. There are some crimes that only involve a subset of all the principles of liability, and these are called crimes of criminal conduct.The question of imposing criminal liability to a corporation for criminal offences committed by directors, managers, officers, and other employees of the corporation while conducting corporate affairs has gained a lot of importance in the jurisprudence of criminal law. The very basis for the possibility of imposing criminal liability to a corporation is its independent legal personality. In the present scenario, it has been observed that the criminal cases in the corporate sector have increased. Occurring of the crimes in the corporate sector without a proper backbone of legislation had been a tough situation as the judges borrowed the laws form various sectors other than the Companies Amendment Act, 2013.Thus, the said crimes have spread their hands everywhere, which also effected the lives of the human beings as well. Thus, the corporates have been the sector which has still not been looked upon in the matters of the criminal cases in their parent act. The corporates have not stopped their journey in committing the crimes as there has been no specified platform under the Companies Amendment Act,2013. As the corporates only aim at the economic gain achieved by disregarding the duty towards society. As the corporation's nature is of non-human entities, the criminal kind of behavior, is difficult to assign to the corporations, along with the application of the principles provided regarding this. To bring the criminal Acts of corporations into the eyes of the laws, a variety of laws are needed. Several attempts were made by the legislatures to impose laws regarding corporate criminal liability. The common law countries i.e., Canada, England, and the United States of America were few of them. In the process of making the laws, these countries have witnessed a large contribution as well as playing a key role in the economy. The company's criminal liabilities were not recognized by the previous laws until the recent amendment. As per the Companies Act,2020 has been a platform where the criminal liability was recognized. But the recognition was in a negative way. The new Companies Act,2020 (hereinafter ‘Act,2020’) has removed criminal liability from the corporates. The corporates like the small set up and the One Person Companies. It has been noticed that the legislatures have been in the intention to remove the liabilities burden from the corporates. The corporates have again been relieved of any such liabilities which are of criminal form. The companies have been committing wrongs for ages and have finally made it to make themselves free from any such liabilities. The very fact the corporates are not capable of committing any crimes.