CORPORATE CRIMINAL LIABILITY IN INDIA-A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
Ramasayi Gummadi, Tamilnadu National Law University
INTRODUCTION
A corporate is an entity which is established with the help of registration and legislation. Apart from the shareholders in such a company, even the company that so is under consideration has separate rights and liabilities. There are some corporations which have their establishments in other countries other than that of their home country and they are known as Multi-National Corporations. They indeed play a vital role in a layman’s life from time to time and have evolved as a powerhouse in comparison to various nations as such. Therefore it is imperative that there is some control or rather a cap on the activities that so are performed by these corporations. This is exactly why the Doctrine of Corporate Criminal Liability came into consideration and as per this doctrine a corporate is liable and can be penalized for any unlawful act of its agents provided that the unlawful act that so is performed is under the scope of the agent’s work in that corporation. The authority that so Is presumed by the agents which takes into consideration the authority by an average reasonable person refers to the apparent authority, while on the other hand, the authority that the corporation assigns to the agents refers to the actual authority. Taking into consideration that the corporations have their own entity it is imperative to note that they can very well be held liable. Adding the criminal liability to the term corporate gives it a conclusion that the Corporate Criminal Liability is a doctrine under which a corporate can be held liable for its acts or omissions for such an act or omission that is performed by it, i.e, the agents. The expansion of the corporate sector through globalization and the development of technology had made sure that the development of the Corporate Criminal Liability is un-hindered. As mentioned earlier these corporations play a major role in the functioning of a society which means that the society or these corporations are bound to be victimized and that is exactly where the deterrence factor plays a major role. There are several theories that are associated with the Doctrine of Corporate Criminal Liability which includes Theory of Vicarious Liability, Identification Theory and the Aggregation Theory which are taken into consideration to carry out this theoretical analysis of the Corporate Criminal in order to determine its scope and effectiveness.
