CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN INDIA: MOVING FROM CHARITY TO MANDATED SOCIAL CHANGE

In 2013, India became the first country in the world to mandate corporate social responsibility through law, embedding a statutory 2% spending obligation within Section 135 of the Companies Act. Over a decade later, the aggregate numbers suggest compliance; the ground reality tells a more complicated story. This article examines whether India’s mandatory CSR framework has produced genuine structural change or has instead institutionalised a sophisticated form of paper compliance. Through an analysis of Section 135, Schedule VII, and the CSR Amendment Rules of 2021, the paper identifies critical design failures — including the absence of geographic targeting, the self-commissioning of impact assessments, and the concentration of spend in states where companies are headquartered rather than where developmental need is most acute. The article engages with key judicial interventions, including the Supreme Court’s decision in Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment and Forests (2013), the Madras High Court’s ruling in the Sterlite-Thoothukudi matter, and the Rajasthan High Court’s 2021 directions in Suresh Kumar Sharma v. Union of India, to argue that courts are increasingly being called upon to fill accountability gaps that the statute deliberately left open. Drawing on the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance’s 2021 findings, the paper concludes that meaningful transformation requires three structural reforms: independent impact assessment, geographically-weighted incentives, and integration of CSR fundinginto state development plans — shifting the regulatory question from how much was spent to what actually changed. In 2013, India did something no other country had attempted — it legally compelled companies to spend money on society. Not encouraged. Not nudged with tax breaks. Compelled. Over a decade later, the honest question isn't whether companies are complying. Most are. The more uncomfortable question is whether any of it is producing real change, or whether we've built the world's most elaborate paper compliance machine.