XKDR Newsletter - Issue 19
Estimating judicial capacity • Distance to default of firms • Global military production • Intermittency of renewables • Reforms for power sector in Tamil Nadu • Digitisation of Indian courts
Estimating Capacity Requirements of the National Company Law Tribunal: Notes from the Field
Susan Thomas and Bhargavi Zaveri-Shah have authored a chapter in the book Technology and Analytics for Law and Justice from DAKSH Centre of Excellence for Law and Justice and IIT Delhi. In this chapter, they demonstrate the use of the Weighted Caseload Method (WCM) to estimate required judicial capacity at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
Key takeaways
Traditional measures for estimating judicial capacity of Indian courts focused on disposal rates, pendency, filings or judge-population ratio.
These approaches treat all cases alike, ignoring the complexities of different case-types. Further, they don't consider the distinct processes involved in each stage of a case from its start to finish.
Computing “judicial time” based on type of a case and stages of a case, gives a better estimate.
Read the full chapter here.
Do decreases in Distance-to-Default predict rating downgrades?
The main criticism about credit ratings is their slow reaction to the deteriorating financial conditions of the borrower. In a recently published paper, using data on credit ratings, market price information, firm characteristics, and accounting ratios, Susan Thomas and her co-authors Nidhi Aggarwal and Manish Singh, examine whether changes in credit ratings can be updated more frequently than the frequency of updates in the accounting data.
Key findings
Market-based distance to default (DtD) can indicate information about the financial health of a firm much before the rating agencies update credit ratings.
The average DtD level of all the rating categories drops persistently for downgraded firms with a lead time between 1 to 12 months.
Changes in DtD over periods in the immediate past help to update the probability of a downgrade with higher frequency than can be done based on updates of the accounting measures.
Read the full paper here.
OP-ED & COMMENTARY
The conflict between Israel and Hamas at Gaza has created additional demand for defence production on top of the Russia-Ukraine war. In his article in the Business Standard, Ajay Shah makes a distinction between high intensity wars, where the protagonists are peer states, versus insurgencies. He discusses the global problem in military production and the opportunity for India in this space in the global landscape.
Traditionally, energy field has been distinguised into generation, transmission and distribution. In their article in the Business Standard, Ajay Shah and Akshay Jaitly highlight the place for a new fourth industry, the business of energy storage. The authors argue that the business of energy storage is distinct from the business of electricity generation and that the role of price system is at the heart of it.
EVENTS
Energy Policy
We jointly hosted a conference on 13th October 2023 with TrustBridge on 'Improving the Investibility of the Power Sector in Tamil Nadu'. The sessions at the conference presented a review of the power sector in Tamil Nadu, with a focus on fiscal deterioration, electricity regulation, and contracting failures in the sector. The discussion also addressed political economy challenges through the solarisation of agricultural consumers.
Legal Systems
As part of our monthly seminar series on Indian Legal Systems Reforms, at Seminar #4, Karthik Suresh discussed his paper on India's Challenges in Accessing Legal Services that is being co-authored with Varsha Aithala of National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The event also included a presentation by Suyash Rai of Carnegie India on Direct tax disputes and the political economy of tax administration in India.
Public Governance
We hosted Nikhil Nadiger of Samagra who delivered a session on two frameworks, The Governance Matrix and Panchsutras for Governance Transformation, that have been developed by Samagra from their experience of working with governments, across various domains and levels. Watch the recording of the session here.
Land Market
Diya Uday moderated a panel session on Land, Law and Technology at the India Land and Development Conference (ILDC 2023) held in Pune. The discussion focused on aspects of law that intersect with various technology-based schemes in the field of land such as SVAMITVA and DILRMP. The panelists included, Pradeep Nayak, Govt. of Odisha, and Lt. General Girish Kumar, former Surveyor General, Government of India.
VIDEOS AND PODCASTS
New episodes of Ajay Shah’s YouTube show Everything is Everything with Amit Varma are out.
UPCOMING
For our Seminar #5 on Indian Legal System Reforms,
Joseph Rajesh, Deputy Director (IT), High Court of Kerala will discuss the learnings from the IT Transformation of the Kerala High Court.
Siddarth Raman will present XKDR Forum’s approach to measuring court performance in India.
We welcome your comments and suggestions on our work. Please write them to pavithra.manivannan4@gmail.com. To know more about our work and to collaborate with us visit xkdr.org.