CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN INDIA: LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND IMPLEMENTATION UNDER THE COMPANIES ACT, 2013
AUTHOR – SOURAV TANWAR* & DR TRAPTI VARSHNEY**
* STUDENT AT AMITY UNIVERSITY, NOIDA
** PROFESSOR AT AMITY LAW SCHOOL, NOIDA
BEST CITATION – SOURAV TANWAR & DR TRAPTI VARSHNEY, CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN INDIA: LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND IMPLEMENTATION UNDER THE COMPANIES ACT, 2013, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (8) OF 2026, PG. 566-575, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344.
Corporate Social Responsibility in India represents a distinctive regulatory experiment where voluntary philanthropic traditions have been transformed into mandatory legal obligations through statutory intervention. This paper critically examines the legal framework governing CSR under the Companies Act, 2013, analyzing whether mandatory spending requirements effectively advance social development objectives or merely create compliance burdens without corresponding societal benefits. Through doctrinal analysis of statutory provisions, regulatory guidelines, judicial interpretations, and empirical implementation patterns, this research investigates the effectiveness of India’s pioneering approach to legislating corporate social obligations. The examination reveals that while India became the first nation globally to mandate CSR expenditure, implementation challenges including narrow interpretations of eligible activities, preference for safe and visible projects over impactful interventions, geographical concentration in already developed regions, and inadequate monitoring mechanisms have limited transformative potential. The regulatory architecture establishing spending thresholds, board-level CSR committees, and prescribed activity schedules creates accountability structures yet simultaneously generates compliance-oriented approaches prioritizing expenditure documentation over genuine social impact assessment. However, the framework has successfully mainstreamed CSR discourse within corporate governance, generated substantial financial flows toward social sectors, and established precedents for corporate accountability beyond shareholder value maximization. Recommendations emphasize strengthening impact measurement requirements, encouraging collaborative and innovative CSR approaches, addressing geographical disparities in CSR deployment, enhancing regulatory oversight capacity, and balancing mandatory compliance with flexibility enabling contextually appropriate interventions that genuinely advance sustainable development objectives.
Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Companies Act 2013; CSR spending; corporate governance; social development; regulatory compliance; sustainable development; Schedule VII activities.