‘Independent directors not really independent’

Retail shareholders flag worry: survey

A significant percentage of individual shareholders believe the constitution of the board of directors of most Indian companies is tilted towards promoters as many independent directors are not really independent, says a survey.

According to the Corporate Governance Survey 2020 by online platform LocalCircles, 79% individual shareholders have expressed concern about the independence of independent directors.

LocalCircles conducted the survey after observing citizen posts on corporate governance over a 12-month period. The survey received more than 48,000 responses from 21,000 unique shareholders located across 272 districts of India.

As many as 65% of individual shareholders said that independent directors in publicly-traded Indian companies are not acting to protect the interest of minority shareholders, the survey said. Further, the top-three concerns of individual shareholders of such companies are accounting fraud, selling of company assets without shareholder knowledge and insider trading.

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