Corporate Criminal Liability, Mens Rea, And The Doctrine Of Attribution In India After Iridium India Telecom Ltd. V. Motorola Inc.
- IJLLR Journal
- Apr 25
- 2 min read
Amar Bahadur Yadav, Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar
ABSTRACT
Whether an artificial legal person, a corporation, which has neither a soul nor physical body, can be criminally liable to commit a crime with a guilty mind has been a long-standing issue in courts in common law jurisdictions. In India, the case Iridium India Telecom Ltd. v. Motorola Inc (2011) provided a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court that clarifies the underlying inquiry: corporations are subject to prosecution as a result of committing a mens rea crime such as cheating and criminal conspiracy as addressed in the Indian Penal Code, 1860. This article explores the Iridium case as a legal precedent in the Indian law of corporate criminal liability. It follows the pre-Iridium jurisprudence Velliappa Textiles to Standard Chartered Bank that paved the way to the ultimate decision made by the Supreme Court. It examines the two main decisions of the judgment: (i) that a company can have mens rea under the doctrine of attribution; and (ii) non-disclosure or a misrepresentation in a private placement memorandum can be criminal cheating. The article subsequently discusses the ways in which Sunil Bharti Mittal v. CBI (2015) refined the doctrine of alter ego by concluding that the attribution of corporate mens rea to directors cannot be applied in reverse. The article is a critical evaluation of the nature of the Iridium ruling, especially the fact that it resorts to the anthropomorphic Tesco method without immersing into the more adaptable Meridian approach, and that India badly needs a legislative approach towards the attribution of criminal liability on companies to add sanity and predictability to this developing field.
Keywords: Corporate Criminal Liability, Mens Rea, Doctrine of Attribution, Alter Ego, Iridium, Tesco, Meridian, Section 420 IPC, Companies Act 2013.
