The Legal Fiction: Corporate Criminal Liability In India From Bhopal To The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023
Fatima Faridi, LLB (Hons.), Amity Law School, Noida
ABSTRACT
Corporate criminal liability in India has evolved not by legislative design but through a reactive arc stretching from the industrial catastrophe of 1984 to the criminal law reforms of 2023. This article traces that evolution through three doctrinal phases: an era of strict civil liability coexisting with effective corporate criminal immunity; a period of judicial revolution in which the Supreme Court adopted the identification doctrine and dismantled the impossibility-of-imprisonment shield; and the present phase defined by legislative expansion and the enactment of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023. The article argues that while the current framework is considerably more sophisticated than its origins, it remains structurally incomplete. Four critical deficits persist: the absence of a corporate culture standard of liability adequate to large and diffuse organizations; the absence of a corporate manslaughter offence; the absence of structured sentencing methodology; and the absence of a deferred prosecution agreement mechanism. Drawing on comparative models from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, the article proposes a two-tier legislative reform and concludes that the completion of this framework is a task that now belongs, unambiguously, to Parliament.
Keywords: Corporate mens rea; Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023; identification doctrine; absolute liability; corporate culture.
