INDIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Raghav Seth, Shruti Garg, Pranav Tomar and Shailja Rawal, AZB & Partners
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Class Action in India: A New Dawn? Introduction – protecting interests of a “class” in India A class action is a form of representative litigation in which one or more people litigate on behalf of a wider group whose claims share a common interest. The eventual decision in a class action ultimately binds (or otherwise affects) the whole group rather than only the named parties. The model of class action is typically justified where separate cases would be impractical, would risk inconsistent outcomes, or would make enforcement economically irrational for individual claimants. India permits class-action style proceedings, but it does so through specific statutory and procedural “representative” mechanisms rather than through a single, general-purpose class action regime of the kind associated with the United States of Americas’ federal or state-specific procedures. Public interest litigation (PIL) in India is not, in strict procedural terms, a “class action suit”, even though a successful PIL often produces class-wide or public- wide benefits. The primary difference is that a class action is ordinarily a private law vehicle designed to resolve many similar individual claims through a rep- resentative plaintiff, with procedural safeguards such as court permission, notice and binding effect on the represented class. By contrast, a PIL is a public law writ proceeding brought under the Constitution of India, 1950 (typically under Article 32 before the Supreme Court, or Article 226 before a High Court) to vindicate constitutional or legal duties, commonly
against the state or public authorities. PIL is driven more by standing and public interest considerations than by class representation mechanics. In the private law sphere, Indian law recognises rep- resentative suits under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) in relation to disputes covering com- mercial issues such as breach of contract or tortious claims. Group complaints relating to breach of Indian consumer laws are also recognised under the Con- sumer Protection Act, 2019. Class actions in relation to investor or corporate governance issues is recog- nised under Section 245 of the Companies Act, 2013 (the “Companies Act”). This article focuses on Section 245 of the Compa- nies Act, which was enacted over a decade ago but has remained virtually untested and unused. A recent investor-led dispute concerning allegations of fraud and diversion in a public listed company brought Sec- tion 245 of the Companies Act back from the abyss. We discuss the recent developments in class action jurisprudence under Section 245 of the Companies Act and how such proceedings are powerful tools to agitate shareholder/investor grievances in companies plagued with mismanagement or misgovernance. The Jindal Poly Films judgment The decision in Jindal Poly Films Ltd v Ankit Jain , 2026 SCC OnLine NCLAT 178, marks the first instance in India in which the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has admitted a class action petition under Section 245 of Companies Act. NCLT’s order admit- ting the class action petition was challenged in appeal
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