'Independent Director' : Is there a need for a relook in the age of Start-ups?

Under The Companies Act, the ID is tasked with upholding high standards of integrity, objectivity, and independence, ensuring the company's adherence to laws and regulations, and safeguarding stakeholder interests. In other words, performance of the Company itself is subservient to the above. Companies Act 1956: The Companies Act, 1956 (now largely superseded by the Companies Act, 2013) defines and regulates the duties, responsibilities, and liabilities of independent directors. These legal frameworks are designed to ensure good corporate governance and protect stakeholders' interests. Critical view: Companies Act mainly concerns itself about the legal aspects per se. An analogy may be drawn with the security protocols established by internet agencies like Microsoft, Google & the like which work on a basis of one-size-fits-all. The point is that security should reflect needs of the organization. For e.g. Infosys & TCS may demand highest level of protection & encryption, whereas other organizations could thrive with very basic security protocols.  Questions to ask: In essence, independent directors under Companies Act are a check and balance on the executive team, providing an objective perspective to ensure the company's sustainable success and protect the interests of all stakeholders. Therefore, governance takes a pre-eminence over performance, which is understandable but that also makes an assumption that managing a company is already taken care of. So maybe these assumptions work for a mature company with 10-15 years’ experience but for others there is a thin line between compliance and survival. Isn't it ? An alternative: Our answer to this dilemma is the vBoard which can work under a professional contract which allows for the member to engage in diverse roles like advisor, trainer, and consultant. Then, the contract (being focused on professional services rather than legal protection) also tends to enable and empower a company to relentlessly seek solutions. By providing an equivalent of a ‘court of appeal’ in the professional contract it ensures that the company always remains in control over the assignment rather than being ‘tenure based’ in the case of the Companies Act The future: What the future holds, no one can tell. But it's our collective responsibility to ensure that we get there without colossal losses of resources along the way. The cost in terms of capital, investment, assets can probably be measured but the costs in terms of pre-mature exit of an entrepreneur, their ideas or their migration to a place where their ideas are better received (as happened in our recent history) makes it very incumbent on us to provide the right solution.