Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016: revisiting with market reality Shakti Deb KIIT School of Law, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India, and Indrajit Dube Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to revisit the Indian experience on corporate bankruptcy law to answer “why Indian corporate insolvency law structured differently from a manager-driven (pre-Insolvency Code) to manager-displacing model (post-Insolvency Code)?” Design/methodology/approach – This paper is qualitative in nature. The paper analyses the prevailing theoretical wisdom in corporate insolvency law in India and examines the practices of Indian bankruptcy regime. Findings – The authors argued, considering the corporate ownership composition, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 will not accomplish the intended objective (i.e. the “creditor primacy”). The findings refute with the evolutionary theory, i.e. debt and equity both will tend towards dispersion in outsider system of governance. Originality/value – This paper put forward the imprint that Indian corporate insolvency regime is manager-displacing under Law on Books and manager-driven under Law on Practice. Keywords Ownership, Governance, Insolvency, India, Creditors Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction The post-independent India witnessed transitions in corporate purposes because of changes in political economic policies [1], and, hence, also the transitions of corporate insolvency laws. Until enactment of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) 2016, voluntary and involuntary winding up was the widely resorted mechanism to address corporate distress. The innovation in corporate insolvency law started with the enactment of Sick Industrial Companies Act (SICA) 1985. SICA was enacted as a response to pre-matured liquidation of assets of a distressed corporation and protection of employment of corporate workforce because of immature liquidation. Thus, SICA adopted debtor in possession model of insolvency, where the management is not divested with powers of management on adjudication of corporate insolvency. The SICA was only applicable for producing companies. The act and the institution established under the act failed on a number of counts such as willful defaulters’ recourse to SICA, institutional inefficiency and unsustainable revival plans (Dube, 2019). After SICA, the succeeding innovation in insolvency law was IBC 2016. IBC is primarily creditor-driven, which entails that with the commencement of insolvency, the creditors assume the control over management and the possibility of turn-around is decided by the creditors. The idea of the creditor-driven Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 Received 6 May 2020 Revised 24 July 2020 Accepted 4 August 2020 International Journal of Law and Management © Emerald Publishing Limited 1754-243X DOI 10.1108/IJLMA-05-2020-0133 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1754-243X.htm