Interest in corporate governance is a recent phenomenon. As Goswami (2000) states, it is a result of a spate of corporate governance scandals that shook the country during the early liberalization era. Obscure companies quickly listed on the exchanges during the stock market boom of 1993-94 only to disappear after siphoning off public funds and leaving the retail investors with illiquid stock. The sudden appearance of vanishing companies during the period coupled with the emergence of a new breed of shareholders like the foreign investors, institutional investors and mutual funds and their demands for better governance practices has compelled the policy makers to think of the governance anomalies in corporate India.

This paper attempts at driving home the point that though corporate governance as a term gained currency in the recent past, its roots can be traced back to the managing agency system prevalent in India during the pre-independence period. The paper wades thorugh the various available models of governnance under which current day corporate governance got shaped. It also discusses some policy interventions by the government that brought corporate governance as a 'regulatory mechanism' to the fore.

From Managing Agency System to Naresh Chandra Committee Report on Corporate Governance, Managing Agency, Committee Report, System Report, Agency markets, public funds, breed shareholders, policy makers, governnance models