Corporate Social Responsibility in Pursuance of India’s Sustainable Development Goals Commitments

I. Introduction

International organizations and standards provide guidelines for private companies within states to regulate and sanction business activity to curb climate change and human rights related impacts that may arise. The most significant instrument of this nature being the 2011 United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (GPs). The GPs were established after 6 years of extensive research and multi-stakeholder consultations held all around the world. This was led by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the human rights responsibility of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

The GPs put a duty on the companies to prevent human rights abuses and lay out 31 principles guiding companies to reduce their contribution to human rights violations. The following are the most relevant aspects of the GPs:

a) The GPs are applicable to all sorts of human rights that are internationally recognised.

b) It lays down the responsibility of the corporations to earnestly carry out human rights.

c) In order to define the scope of corporate responsibility, the GPs use the concept of impact and not the sphere of influence.

d) It designates states with the duty to frequently check the existing law, regulations and jurisdictions in order to assess whether the state has taken all necessary measures for the prevention, investigation, penalization and redressal for any human rights abuses by third parties.

e) The states can use the GPs as a standard to assess and align their own policies on climate change and human rights to it. The extraterritorial application of human rights obligations could help solve the existing gaps in regulations which prevent the climate-change related corporate human rights harm.

From a legal perspective, the GPs are not very helpful in the prevention of climate-change-related human rights impacts by corporations. This is because the GPs have not been legally binding or enforceable on both the private business entities or the states. The effectiveness and implementation of these principles depends on how serious and obligated the states are in protecting their human rights and also on whether there is acknowledgement of the companies regarding ‘business case’ i.e. whether there is any commercial benefit for following the corporate responsibility of the protection of human rights. It is very rare for companies to adopt such practices when there is no apparent business case for the same.

The OHCHR (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), in a report on the relationship between climate change and human rights studying whether climate change can be viewed as a human rights violation done in 2009 major emphasis was laid on the business activities and the corporate sector - how most of them are direct contributors to global environmental damage.

The biggest challenges regarding regulation of business activities contributing to climate-change-related harm are the transnational nature of such activities. Either corporate activities are conducted in one country but it’s impact is felt in others (e.g. American and European oil and gas companies generate most of their emissions abroad, in countries that do not have strict emissions regulations. In the manufacturing sector too, companies tend to outsource the most polluting and environmentally damaging phases to other countries which are generally the developing countries) or the harmful activities are results of the subsidiaries acting in a different jurisdiction from the parent company. This issue was also discussed by The International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP) in their Rough Guide on Climate Change and Human Rights.

One of the first countries to make corporate social responsibility compulsory for companies- was India, it posits that a percentage of the company’s net profit shall be spent on undertaking social responsibilities in uplifting communities and aiding the government in its human rights obligations. At present, compulsory disclosure mechanisms under SEBI and NSE require companies to include a separate report on responsible business conduct called Business Responsibility Report (BRR) in their annual reports to secure getting listed on the stock exchanges. These requirements are mandatory for top 500 companies and are voluntary for other companies as well.

In 2011, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs released a revised version of the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business (NVGs). These NVGs were oriented towards the SDG requirements and the UNGPs. Eventually, the NVGs were further revised in the form of the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) and released in 2019. The NGRBC now aims to oblige businesses to undertake measures that allow them to perform beyond legal and regulatory requirements in lieu of human rights protection.

Companies in India have already started to externally communicate their human rights policies and work towards ensuring all processes in the value chain implement national and international standards of human rights as the first step towards mainstreaming the concept of corporate social responsibility.

These actions by the Government emphasize the importance of the engagement of the private sector in India’s SDGs commitment. Business serves an essential role as a source of finance, as a driver of innovation and technological development and as a key engine of economic growth and employment. In such a backdrop, we aim to evaluate the ways in which the present CSR mechanism can incorporate UNGPs and the principles provided under India’s own NGRBC. We seek to answer the following questions:

1. Whether CSR mechanisms in India incorporate principles of corporate human rights responsibility as under the UNGPs read with the NGRBC?

2. Whether CSR mechanisms are effective means of filling the gaps present in the UNGPs and the NGRBC in terms of enforcing private sector engagement in fulfilling India’s sustainable development goals?

3. Whether other incidental laws facilitate corporate negligence and thus, defeats the purpose of CSR?

Thus, this paper examines whether CSR, in principle and under the companies act, is an effective public policy tool to construct meaningful business engagement in fulfilling India’s sustainable development goals. For this purpose, the contours of the paper are discussions on the UNGPs, NGRBC principles, CSR and an analytical examination of the effectiveness of CSR in the backdrop of UNGPs and the NGRBC principles.

II. Corporate social responsibility: under companies act, 2013

The world business council for sustainable development defined corporate social responsibility as the continued commitment of a business to act ethically, contribute to economic development and improve the overall quality of life of their workmen and the society. The foundation on which CSR is constructed, is that businesses should be held liable and accountable for their actions, learning that they have a responsibility towards society and its people. This includes keeping in mind social, environmental concerns in their operations and interactions with stakeholders.

The Indian Companies Act, 2013 makes CSR activities compulsory. Section 135 of the Act states that companies that have a net worth of 500 crores or more, a turnover of 1000 crores or more or a net profit of 5 crore rupees or more shall compulsorily constitute a CSR committee. The committee shall have at least 3 directors and at least one independent director. The duty of the board is to formulate a CSR policy for the company and ensure its implementation. It is the duty of the board to make sure that the company spends at least 2% of the net profits of the preceding 3 financial years towards the fulfillment of the CSR policy. The section also states that the local area where the company operates should be given priority for the pursuance of the CSR activities.

Besides Section 135, the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility) Rules, 2014 came into effect. The CSR rules of 2014 prescribe certain activities that companies can undertake for CSR activities, these include:

• Efforts towards reducing hunger and poverty,
• promoting education,
• Activities promoting gender equality
• Uplifting of minority, backward and marginalized sections of society.
• protection of national heritage and art and culture,
• contributions towards the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund or any such fund established by the Central or State Governments to achieve and promote socio-economic development
• Contribution towards treatment of medical diseases

Examples of Indian Companies engaging in CSR activities:

• Tata Steel engages in various activities contributing to tribal area development, agricultural activities and industrialization of rural areas.
• Infosys Technologies established the Infosys Foundation which has set up schools and libraries in rural areas. It has also promoted various research activities and public health programmes.

III. The growth of corporate responsibility - guidelines and practices

India was the first country to regulate CSR under the Companies Act, 2013. The law provides a framework on dealing with developmental challenges. It enumerates 11 specific areas as eligible developmental activities where the CSR funds of a company can be utilised. There are many gaps in the implementation of the CSR policy. For instance, there is a lack of accessibility to reliable CSR reporting data in one central place, lack of collaborations between government, civil and private sectors, lack of infrastructure and skilled professionals and lack of investment in the development of collaborative platforms, research systems and capacity-building institutions. Despite these existing gaps, the CSR expenditure has grown by 41% in 2016-17 as compared to 2014-15⁴. It is also observed that there is increased interest of companies’ in investing in unique flagship projects, this can also be seen as an encouragement to invest in innovative ways for resolving the challenges against sustainable development.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development consists of 17 SDGs and 169 associated targets. These SDGs pose a challenge to the companies. The SDGs comprises the developmental goals that have to be followed by nations and societies while growing and to go beyond the present notions of corporate social responsibility. The companies have to internalise these goals for the equitable development of the society and also for sustainable growth of their own businesses.

The implementation of the SDGs by the government would be difficult without a strong collaboration with the business communities. Corporates have a significant role in the development of SDGs which is indicative of their interests in advancing the sustainable development goals. Several businesses around the world have shown their support and have aligned their working processes to these goals. In Indian also many companies have mapped and aligned their working to the SDGs.

The to facilitate and promote more sustainable corporate activities, the UN has created the United Nations Guiding Principles (hereinafter referred to UNGPs)

(A) The UNGPs: International Guidelines For Sustainable Corporations:

There is an obligation that rests upon businesses regardless of the States’ willingness to meet their own human rights obligations, and thus, this obligation to respect human rights prevails over compliance with national laws and regulations protecting human rights.

The UNGPs provide means through which climate-change related human rights impacts may be addressed through corporate responsibility. The following are elements comprising of GPs vis a vis corporate responsibility to human rights:

(i) Applicability to all human rights:

GPs encompass the whole range of internationally recognised human rights⁵. This umbrella coverage of GPs is thus important for the prevention, investigation, punishment and redress of climate change related human rights abuses by businesses. Moreover, this broad scope of the GPs in terms of human rights applicability, also propels a great degree of flexibility when it comes to applying human rights law to climate change.

This is express in GP12 which acknowledges two key realities that guide the broad scope for GP application:

(1) Businesses can have impacts on the entire spectrum of internationally recognised human rights and thus, their obligation to respect human rights applies to all such human rights;

(2) The risks that are posed to any kind of human rights depends largely on the operations of a particular business or industry. Thus, situations may change and so, all human rights should be the subject of the GPs.

(ii) The Human Rights Due Diligence Concept:

According to GP15, for businesses to carry out their human rights obligations, they should maintain statements of policy, human rights due diligence and remediation processes. This concept forms the foundation of corporate human rights responsibility to thoroughly address adverse human rights impacts these enterprises can bring forth.

(iii) Human Rights Impact Assessment:

An essential component of human rights due diligence is that businesses should carry out a human rights impact assessment. This assessment occurs in four steps:

(1) Identifying and assessing the potential and actual human rights abuses with an intent to consider the specific impacts of specific business activities on specific communities. (GP18)

(2) Assessment should integrate all relevant international operations to allow effective action by businesses based on findings of the impact assessment. (GP19)

(3) Tracking the effectiveness of the responses towards the impacts upon individuals from groups or populations that may be at a greater risk of vulnerability or marginalization. (GP20)

(4) Businesses must externally report the manner in which businesses have addressed their human rights impacts through transparency and accountability to all stakeholders, including impacted individuals and groups. (GP21)

The GPs give corporations a great degree of flexibility in determining processes by which they may incorporate human rights impact assessment, certain processes that corporations may adopt are to include human rights impact assessment in risk assessments or environmental and social impact assessments. In doing so, the GPs acknowledge the interrelationship between human rights, environmental and social impacts. This flexibility conferred should, however, include all internationally recognized human rights as point of reference.

(iv) Meaning of Impact:

The concept of ‘impact’ is used to delineate the scope of corporate responsibility. Here, ‘impact’ means both, the actual and potential consequences which corporate activities can have on human rights. The actual and potential consequences or ‘impact’ can broadly be caused by either, (i) the company’s own activities; (ii) through company’s business relations (refers to a scenario where company has not directly caused adverse impact) i.e. adverse impacts are caused in its dealings with production and services through its relations with its business partners (state or non-state) who are entities on the value chain. And thus, the ‘impact’ based approach confers responsibility on many involved entities, directly and indirectly.

1. Gaps in the GPs:

As noted above, a company’s motivation to deliver its human rights obligations has to be a business case insofar as a company’s main aim is to make profits, companies would not be willing to increase their costs implementing human rights impact assessments, especially in pursuance to a soft international law obligation such as the UNGP which has no legal enforcement mechanism that could commandeer compliance from companies. As it stands at present, the GPs are based on volunteerism without a legal sanction mechanism if a company ignores to follow the blueprint laid under the GPs that guide companies to know and show their respect to human rights. The effectiveness of the GPs is contingent on the following factors:

(1) States’ willingness to deliver their human rights obligations under public international law;

(2) Businesses acknowledge that there’s a ‘business case’ or a profit motivated case for

(3) complying with their corporate human rights responsibility. This further relies heavily on the cost-benefit analysis of enterprises, in that, where the benefits of avoiding operational, legal and reputational risks outweigh the costs of conducting human rights due diligence, such as a human rights impact assessment, the more the more convincing is the business case for complying with the corporate social responsibility to respect human rights.

(B) Corporate Responsibility Mechanisms In India:

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs introduced the National Voluntary Guidelines on the Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business (NVGs) in 2011. It is a set of guidelines that provide direction to businesses on what constitutes responsible business conduct. In 2015, the revision of NVGs began in order to incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the ‘Respect’ pillar of the UNGPs, and the new principles were called the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC). The objective of the NGRBC is to facilitate businesses to transcend the requirements of regulatory compliance.

The primary reason behind the revisions was to integrate the important national and international developments in the fields of sustainable development and corporate responsibility that have taken place since the NVGs was introduced in 2011. One of the significant developments was the release of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2011. The UN Guiding Principles stress on the obligations of the State’s and the requirement of businesses to protect, respect and fulfill human freedom and rights. It also emphasizes on the dire necessity for the redressal of the cases of business related human rights impacts or abuse. The UNGPs pose as a global guidance for Business and Human Rights. The United Nations Working Group was established by the UN Human RIghts Commission. The UNWG worked towards the world-wide establishment and implementation of the UN Guiding Principles. It encouraged all the State’s to introduce a National Action Plan (NAP) as an instrument through which the UNGPs could be implemented. The other rationale for the update was the establishment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The seventeen SDGs call for corporations to follow the UNGPs. Apart from this, section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 also mandates the companies to take up Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actions in communities.

1. The NGRBC Frameworks:

Introduced in 2019, the NGBRC is aligned with the 17 SDGs. For instance, Principles 3, 4 and 8 of NGBRC are in line with the SDG goal 1, which is no poverty. Principle 1 of NGBRC states that companies should promote the well-being of their employees. Principle 4 states that businesses should promote and respond to the interests of all its stakeholders. And lastly principle 8 states that there should be promotion of inclusive growth and equitable development.

All businesses regardless of their ownership, location, sector, size or structure can utilise the NGRBC. The expectation is that all local businesses as well as the multinational corporations should abide by the NGRBC. These guidelines provide a framework which guides the Indian MNCs in conducting overseas operations, in addition to aligning with applicable local national standards and norms governing responsible business conduct⁶. The NGRBC re-emphasizes the need to encourage businesses to follow these guidelines themselves and alsoto encourage their vendors, partners, suppliers and other collaborators to abide by the NGRBC.

The NGRBC principles are inclusive of the principles of the UN sustainable Development goals, the UN guiding principles for business and human rights, Core conventions 138 and 182 on child labor by International Labor organization, and Paris Agreement on climate changes⁷. It consists of the following nine principles of business responsibility:

1. Businesses should conduct themselves with integrity and work in an ethical, accountable and transparent way.

2. Goods and services should be provided in a safe and sustainable manner.

3. The businesses should facilitate the betterment of all the employees and those in their value chains.

4. Businesses should promote and respond to the interests of all its stakeholders.

5. Businesses should respect and promote human rights.

6. Efforts should be made towards the protections and restoration of the environment.

7. While getting involved with regulatory policy and influencing the public, businesses should ensure that they are being transparent and responsible.

8. They should promote inclusive growth and equitable development.

9. Businesses should provide value and involve their consumers in a responsible manner.

Business Responsibility Reporting is a disclosure report given to all its stakeholders listing the responsible business practices adopted by the company. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) makes it mandatory for the top 100 listed companies by market capitalization to file a BRR based on the NVGs in 2012. This reporting was then extended to the top 500 listed companies in 2015. The next version of the SEBI’s BRR Framework aligns with the NGBRC. This changes the manner in which companies would publish their BRR. Understanding and devising the business actions, both core operations and CSR initiatives, to the SDGs will need increased communication among stakeholders regarding the corporate responsibility in more frequency, and synchronised and unified efforts.

Thus, the NGBRC is mapped to all 17 SDGs and provides an India-specific guideline. Several companies like Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Shree Cement Ltd have already adhere to the NVGs based BRR framework to report on their non-financial disclosures⁸.

CSR is consistent with the NGBRC principles, considering the differential scopes of each of the mechanisms of business responsibility. While NGBRC are broader in scope, even covering business conduct during the course of business, CSR only implies an additional responsibility upon businesses other than the intrinsic economic and statutory responsibilities of companies. So the NGBRC principles are vast in scope in that, the UNGPs as reflected in the NGBRC principles in terms of economic, legal, ethical, moral and discretionary⁹ responsibilities of companies; while CSR only contemplates ethical, moral and discretionary responsibilities.

IV. State efforts complementing corporate social responsibility?

The ideological pinnings of Corporate Social Responsibility pinched from the Gandhian principles of trusteeship which posit that shareholders don’t possess ownership in the way ownership is conventionally construed¹⁰, reason being that, corporations are separate legal personalities undetermined by their shareholders, in that, although shareholders may trade their shares in the stock market, they are divested from the rights to possess and use the asset of the company through decisions of the company. Thus, shareholders only maintain residuary claims which are determined by the company. However, if the company’s performance is not satisfactory to the shareholders, shareholders are left with having to exit the company, they cannot lacerate through the management and vocalize their dissatisfaction about the company’s performance or undertake measures to boost the company’s performance. Thus, ownership rights become obviated. However, it is not significantly apt to also call managers as agents of the shareholders, because a company has its own assets, rights and duties, and has its own will and capacity to act and is responsible for its own actions. Thus, the trusteeship theory presupposes that the management wing of the corporate are trustees of the company, and thus, owe two duties towards the corporation:

(i) The fiduciary duty “to sustain the corporation’s assets, including not only the shareholders’ wealth, but also broader stakeholders’ value such as the skills of employees, the expectations of customers and suppliers, and the company’s reputation in the community.”

(ii) As trustees, they have to inquire into the long term interest of the company’s stakeholders cascading into a number of stakeholders from the future. If trustees regard short term interests of the current stakeholders such as shareholder gains, they will be impeded in building the company’s capacities in the long-term.

To effectively realize the mainstreaming of the UNGPs, the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Working Group were tasked with dispensing measures for the implementation of the UNGPs. It was strongly recommended to develop a National Action Plan as part of the States’ responsibility to disseminate and implement the UNGPs. The NAP was formulated by India in December 2018, in pursuance of which a zero draft was prepared in consultation with other Central and State Ministries, and released which disclosed a listing of relevant existing legislations and policies grouped under the three pillars of UNGPs. However, certain existing legislations accord more scope for undermining social responsibility of companies. There’s an apparent conflict in the way the laws are made, some which legitimise indiscriminate actions of companies and some of which concurrently restrict them such as CSR. However, CSR can hardly be thought of as a restraint to corporate indeterminacy vis-a-vis their expansive powers to dispense with its profits in the manner it likes. These expansive powers are stimulated by the state laws that aid corporations at the expense of human rights, and in the process trivializing the importance of CSR. One of the tenets that guide CSR is the idea that corporations should supplement state efforts. The expectation from corporations here is thus for them to undertake growing welfare activities exhausting the state’s limited resources at the moment.

NAP must address certain critical issues that, in essence, really undermine CSR efforts such as:

Indian job market is filled with extremely informalized, low skilled, low paying jobs that suffer from vices such as the gender wage gap, child labour, bonded labour etc. The lack of social protection towards the health and safety of the workers is particularly concerning. Certain Indian Laws also contribute towards these issues. For example, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 does not prohibit children from working in family businesses after school hours which leads to concerns regarding the growth of various implicitly approved forms of child labour. The newly introduced labour codes makes a restricted definition of ‘worker’ which has resulted in the exclusion of platform workers (Swiggy, Uber), IT workers, persons employed in startups and MSMEs, unorganized and informal sector workers. The threshold of the number of workers of an establishment has been increased from 100 to 300 allowing establishments with 300 workers or more to lay-off workers without the government;s permission. 3 out of 4 factories in India have less than 300 workers and all these factories now have a free hand in laying off workers arbitrarily. These codes also constrain trade unions allowing only those trade unions which represent at least 75% to negotiate with employers, when in truth, it is difficult for trade unions to mobilize such large membership. The new codes don’t mention how timely payment of dues, provident funds, gratuity; and doesn’t explain on how social security contributions are to accord to arrangements where there are no employer-employee relations. The occupational and health safety code excludes the agriculture sector which employs more than 50% of the workforce. Employees in other unorganized sectors have also been excluded. State Governments are now allowed to exempt any new establishments from complying with safety standards. All these incline towards affording more discretion and more space to cut down costs and maximise profits for corporations. The human rights due diligence principle of the UNGPs which posits a formulation of a human rights impact assessment, however, such laws truly undermine human rights of labourers and workers. The UNGPs also contemplate an internalization of human rights mainstreaming by engaging stakeholders in meaningful dialogue throughout which includes employees and workers. The new labour codes also run against the third principle of the NGRBC i.e., businesses should respect and promote the well-being of all employees, including those in their value chains. There is a tendency of state governments to acquire land through the usage of land banks which leads to a lot of land conflicts. What is needed is a review of existing laws, identifying their flaws and their application while consulting with the communities and individuals that are so affected by them. The NAP should define clearly it’s goals and the standards of accountability under it up to local levels.

V. Conclusion

The following are the observations of the researchers:

1. The NGBRC principles are vast in scope in that, the UNGPs as reflected in the NGBRC principles in terms of economic, legal, ethical, moral and discretionary¹¹ responsibilities of companies; while CSR only contemplates ethical, moral and discretionary responsibilities.

2. CSR does contemplate UNGP principles of human rights due diligence and the NGBRC principles requiring businesses to respect and promote human rights (Principle 5); businesses to respect and make efforts to protect and restore the environment (Principle 6); and businesses are required to exercise transparency when engaging in influencing public and regulatory policy (Principle 7). These principles reflect in Schedule VII of the Companies Act which lists out CSR activities.

3. Affording a mandatory mechanism for business responsibility such as CSR on one hand, and then, allowing for laws that enable corporates to ignore other aspects of corporate responsibility such as the responsibilities they owe, as trustees, towards members of their own kind is hypocritical and trivializes the purpose for establishing business responsibility. Thus, the human rights due diligence concept is overhauled in this complex scenario where CSR posits for corporations to complement state efforts while in reality, state laws allow irresponsibility by corporations.

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VI. References

Journal articles:

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[2] Jeffery Smith, ‘Market Failures, Political Solutions and Corporate Environmental Responsibility’, (2005) 24(½) Business & Professional Ethics Journal <https://www.jstor.org/stable/27801375> accessed on 16 October 2020.

[3] Yongtae Kim, ‘Do Corporations Invest Enough in Environmental Responsibility?’ (2012) 105(1) Journal of Business Ethics <http://www.jstor.com/stable/41413213> accessed on 17 October 2020.

[4] Changrok Soh, Minwoo Kim and Youngsoo Yu, ‘The Relationship between Corporate Human Rights Responsibility Disclosure and Performance’, (2018) 25(2) Journal of International and Area Studies <https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26909943> accessed on 17 October 2020.

[5] Stefanie Ricarda Roos, ‘Climate Change and Human Rights: What Follows for Corporate Human Rights Responsibility?’ (eds) Climate Change: International Law and Global Governance: Volume I: Legal Responses and Global Responsibility (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH 2013) <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv941w8s.15> accessed 9 October 2020.

[6] Graham Bradley, ‘CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE’, (2020) 73(1) Journal of International Affairs CLIMATE DISRUPTION <https://www.jstor.or g/stable/10.2307/26872785 > accessed on 9 October 2020.

[7] Perspectives, ‘Swimming against the Tide: Coastal Communities and Corporate Plunder in Kutch’ (2012) 47(29) Economic and Political Weekly https://www.jstor.org/stable /41720005> accessed 9 October 2020.

[8] Chakraborty A, and Mehra A, 'United Nations Guiding Principles And The Business And Human Rights In India' (Munich Personal RePEc Archive 2018) <https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/86318/1/MPRA_paper_86318.pdf> accessed 9 October 2020

[9] Simran Kaur and Nidhi Tandon, 'The Role Of Corporate Social Responsibility In India' (2017) 6 The International Journals Research Publications https://www.researchgate.net/publ ication/312084577_The_Role_of_Corporate_Social_Responsibility_in_India, accessed 9 October 2020.

[10] Pankaj Dodh and Sarbjeet Singh, 'Corporate Social Responsibility And Sustainable Development In India' (2013) 3 Global Journal of Management and Business Studies. <https://www.ripublication.com/gjmbs_spl/gjmbsv3n6_17.pdf> accessed 9 October 2020.

[11] Vijay Kumar Singh, 'Corporate Social Responsibility In India: A Human Rights Perspective' (2013) 267 Madras Law Journal https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstrac t_id=2973708.

Reports:

[1] Business Responsibility Reporting In India: Disclosures And Practices.' (National Stakeholder Empowerment Services 2018) https://www.sesgovernance.com/pdf/1520577 718_Business-Responsibility-Report---Annexure.pdf accessed 9 November 2020.

[2] 'National Guidelines On Responsible Business Conduct' (Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister 2019) <https://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/NationalGuildeline_15032019.pdf> accessed 9 November 2020.

[3] ‘Business & Human Rights Ambitions and Actions in India’ (World Business Council for Sustainable Development 2020) <https://docs.wbcsd.org/2019/08/WBCSD_Business_Hum an_Rights_India_Issue_Brief.pdf> accessed 10 November 2020.

[4] Injeti Srinivas, Secretary to Government of India in foreword to the Zero Draft of the Indian National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights <http://mca.gov.in/Ministry/p df/NationalPlanBusinessHumanRight_13022019.pdf> accessed 10 November 2020.

[5] ‘Sustainability reporting landscape in India’ (World Business Council for Sustainable Development 2019) https://docs.wbcsd.org/2018/10/Sustainability_India_Report.pdf accessed 10 November 2020.

[6] ‘The Human Rights Opportunity 15 real-life cases of how business is contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals by putting people first’ (World Business Council for Sustainable Development 2019) https://docs.wbcsd.org/2018/07/The_Human_Rights_Oppo rtunities.pdf accessed 10 November 2020.

[7] ‘Putting people first: progress & priorities in corporate respect for human rights’ ((World Business Council for Sustainable Development 2018) <https://docs.wbcsd.org/2018/11/WB CSD-progress-priorities-in-corporate-respect-for-human-rights.pdf> accessed 10 Novmeber 2020.

[8] ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ (United Nations for Human Rights 2011) https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/GuidingprinciplesBusinesshr_eN.pdf