Glossary
The vocabulary, defined honestly
Terms as practitioners use them, not as vendors market them. Where a term is contested or means different things in different regimes, the entry says so.
50 terms
A
- AERB licenceLicensing
- Authorisation from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board for radiation-emitting equipment such as X-ray and CT installations, requiring a designated Radiological Safety Officer and periodic quality assurance testing.
- Applicability scopingRegulatory change
- Determining whether an obligation applies to a specific entity, site or activity based on state, headcount, turnover, installed capacity and category — as distinct from whether it applies to the sector generally.See also: Threshold, Site graph
- Atomic obligationObligations
- A single requirement expressed with one obligated party, one action, a trigger and a deadline — decomposed to the point where it has exactly one accountable owner and one testable outcome.See also: Obligation decomposition
B
- BOCW cessLabour
- A levy of one percent of construction cost payable under the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, collected by state welfare boards and frequently underpaid because the cost base is computed inconsistently.
- BRSR CoreESG
- The subset of Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report attributes requiring reasonable assurance for specified listed entities, covering nine measures including greenhouse gas, water and waste intensity.See also: Value chain disclosure
C
- CAROTARTrade
- Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules, 2020, placing the burden on importers to hold origin information supporting preferential duty claims rather than relying on the certificate alone.
- CCTSESG
- Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, India’s compliance carbon market, under which obligated entities in nine energy-intensive sectors receive emission intensity targets and surrender certificates against shortfall.
- CERT-In six-hour ruleData & cyber
- The obligation under the 2022 Directions to report specified cyber incidents to CERT-In within six hours of noticing them — a window shorter than most incident triage processes take to confirm an incident occurred.See also: Incident reporting
- Compliance calendarRegulatory change
- A forward schedule of statutory filing dates, licence renewals, in-force dates and transition deadlines. In a multi-state organisation it is per-site and per-registration rather than corporate.
- Consent managerData & privacy
- An entity registered with the Data Protection Board enabling data principals to give, manage, review and withdraw consent through an interoperable platform, subject to a prescribed net worth requirement.
- Consent to Establish / OperateEHS
- Authorisation from a State Pollution Control Board to set up and then operate an industrial unit, carrying site-specific conditions that are legally binding obligations in their own right.See also: Licence condition
D
- Data FiduciaryData & privacy
- Under the DPDP Act, the person who alone or with others determines the purpose and means of processing personal data. Broadly equivalent to a controller, with obligations that differ in important respects.See also: Data Processor, Significant Data Fiduciary
- Data PrincipalData & privacy
- The individual to whom personal data relates. Where the individual is a child or a person with disability, the term includes the parent or lawful guardian.
- Data ProcessorData & privacy
- A person processing personal data on behalf of a Data Fiduciary. Notably, the Act places most obligations on the Fiduciary, which shifts contractual risk allocation compared with GDPR.
- Deemed liabilityDirector liability
- A statutory mechanism under which the person in charge of the conduct of business is presumed guilty of a contravention unless they prove it occurred without their knowledge and that they exercised all due diligence.See also: Due diligence defence, Officer in default
- DPDP ActData & privacy
- Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. India’s horizontal personal data law, notable for having no sensitive data category and no materiality threshold for breach notification.
- Due diligence defenceDirector liability
- The evidentiary defence available under several statutes, requiring the individual to show a functioning compliance system, assignment of responsibility, monitoring and contemporaneous records — not merely good intentions.
E
- E-invoicingTax
- Mandatory generation of an Invoice Reference Number on the Invoice Registration Portal for taxpayers above the notified turnover threshold, with a reporting window from invoice date.
- E-way billTax
- An electronic document required for movement of goods above a threshold value, with a validity period based on distance and consequences for interception without a valid bill.
- Environmental compensationEHS
- A formula-driven levy imposed for environmental contraventions, including shortfall against EPR recycling targets. Unusually for Indian regulatory exposure, it can be calculated precisely in advance.See also: EPR
- EPREHS
- Extended Producer Responsibility. The obligation on producers, importers and brand owners to meet category-wise collection and recycling targets for plastic, e-waste, batteries and tyres, evidenced by certificates on the CPCB portal.
F
- FMCSProduct standards
- Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme, the route by which an overseas manufacturer obtains a BIS licence, involving inspection in the country of origin and typically taking seven to eleven months.See also: Quality Control Order
- Form 3CDTax
- The statement of particulars accompanying a tax audit report, re-clause-numbered following the Income-tax Act, 2025, which breaks internal references built against the earlier format.
G
- GSTINTax
- The state-specific GST registration number. Compliance obligations attach per GSTIN rather than per legal entity, which is why a fourteen-state manufacturer files fourteen sets of returns.
H
- Hazardous processEHS
- A process listed in the First Schedule to the Factories Act attracting enhanced obligations including medical examinations, safety committees and on-site emergency plans, with occupier liability correspondingly greater.
I
- Impact propagationImpact analysis
- Automated traversal of a site graph from a changed obligation to every dependent site, process, system and owner — including the second and third-order impacts manual assessment reliably misses.See also: Site graph
- Interpretation logLegal
- A record of judgement calls made in applying a provision, with rationale, approver and the state or regional office to which it applies — so a position is found rather than re-litigated.
L
- Licence conditionLicensing
- A requirement written into a specific licence, consent or clearance. Legally binding, unique to the site, and typically the largest body of obligations an organisation has never registered.
M
- Minimum wage notificationLabour
- A state notification setting minimum rates by skill category and scheduled employment, revised on the state’s own schedule, commonly half-yearly. Missed revisions produce underpayment at scale.
- MSIHC RulesEHS
- Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules, imposing safety reports, on-site and off-site emergency plans and safety audits on installations holding chemicals above threshold quantities.
N
- Named occupierDirector liability
- The individual identified to the factory inspectorate as having ultimate control over the affairs of a factory, holding personal criminal liability for a wide range of contraventions.See also: Deemed liability
O
- Obligation decompositionObligations
- Breaking an Act, its Rules, state amendments and notifications into atomic obligations with structured attributes and citation anchors to each source provision.See also: Atomic obligation
- Obligation familyObligations
- A cluster of obligations across instruments or states expressing the same underlying requirement, allowing one control to discharge several — provided differing parameters are preserved rather than flattened.
- Officer in defaultDirector liability
- Under the Companies Act, the category of persons on whom liability for a contravention falls, including whole-time directors, key managerial personnel and, in defined circumstances, any officer aware of the contravention.
- Ongoing projectCorporate
- A multi-year CSR project whose unspent funds transfer to the Unspent CSR Account rather than to a Schedule VII fund. The classification must be board-approved on documented criteria and has real financial consequence.
P
- Principal employer liabilityLabour
- The liability of the establishment engaging a contractor for the contractor’s statutory defaults, including provident fund and ESI contributions for contract workers.
- Professional taxTax
- A state-level tax on employment, applicable in some states and not others, with different slabs, thresholds and filing frequencies in each state that levies it.
Q
- Quality Control OrderProduct standards
- An order making conformity to an Indian Standard mandatory for a specified product, after which manufacture, import, sale and storage of non-certified goods becomes unlawful.See also: FMCS
R
- Renewal lead timeLicensing
- The period before expiry by which a renewal application must actually be submitted, given observed processing time at that specific authority — frequently longer than the window in which applications are accepted.
- Revised Schedule MPharma
- The updated good manufacturing practice schedule under the Drugs Rules, requiring a pharmaceutical quality system, computerised system validation, qualification and product quality review — a capital programme rather than a documentation exercise.
S
- Section 134(5)Corporate
- The directors’ responsibility statement in which directors assert that adequate systems exist to ensure compliance with the provisions of all applicable laws and that such systems were operating effectively.See also: Officer in default
- Significant Data FiduciaryData & privacy
- A Data Fiduciary notified by the Central Government based on volume and sensitivity of data and risk factors, attracting additional obligations including an India-based Data Protection Officer, independent audit and impact assessment.
- Site graphImpact analysis
- A structured model of entities, sites, states, processes, systems, licences, controls and third parties with the relationships between them, enabling impact to be computed rather than workshopped.See also: Impact propagation
- State variantMulti-state
- The state-specific version of a Central obligation, differing in threshold, register format, return date, form or procedure. Maintaining these separately is the difference between a register that works and one that does not.
- Structured digital databaseCorporate
- The tamper-evident record of unpublished price sensitive information sharing required under SEBI insider trading regulations, with audit trail and defined retention.
T
- ThresholdObligations
- The quantitative trigger determining applicability — headcount, turnover, installed capacity, chemical quantity or category. The same provision binds one site and not the identical one next door.
- TReDSCorporate
- The Trade Receivables Discounting System, onboarding to which is mandatory for companies above a turnover threshold, with associated reporting on payments to MSME suppliers.
U
- Unspent CSR AccountCorporate
- The account to which unspent CSR amounts relating to ongoing projects must be transferred within thirty days of financial year end, to be spent within three financial years.
V
- Value chain disclosureESG
- The BRSR Core requirement to report sustainability attributes for upstream and downstream partners individually comprising two percent of purchases or sales, cumulatively covering seventy-five percent.
Z
- Zero liquid dischargeEHS
- An effluent standard requiring that no liquid effluent leaves the premises, imposed as a consent condition on certain categories and clusters rather than by general rule.
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