By Natasha Aggarwal and Bhavin Patel

Welcome to The Bridge! Regulatory orders shape markets, govern disputes, and test the rule of law, yet their quality rarely gets the scrutiny it deserves. The Bridge is TrustBridge’s window into the quasi-judicial work of India’s regulators: how they decide, and how they could decide better.

Introduction

TrustBridge has been studying Indian regulators’ adjudicatory orders and practices for about three years.1 As a part of this work, we use a set of “good order writing” (“GOW”) indicators that were developed to evaluate the completeness and quality of regulatory orders. The GOW indicators are context-dependent, which means that the specific indicators to be used in a study are adapted depending on the regulator, the statutory framework, the type of violation, and the type of proceedings involved. This post explains what these GOW indicators are, why we developed them, and how we use them.

The GOW indicators are based on our working paper, A guide to writing good regulatory orders (the “GOW Paper”).2 The paper surveys Indian administrative law requirements, comparative guidance from other jurisdictions, and existing scholarship on adjudicatory writing by regulators to identify the core principles that orders should satisfy. It argues that good orders must do more than merely announce conclusions: they must clearly establish the legal basis of action, identify the relevant facts and issues, demonstrate application of mind, explain the reasoning connecting facts to law, justify sanctions, and communicate decisions in language that is accessible and comprehensible to affected stakeholders.

The starting point: what makes a “good” regulatory order?

We postulate a set of principles of good order writing in the GOW Paper; well-written orders must:

• Clarify the basis for the exercise of regulatory power,

• Clearly identify the legal provisions that are purportedly violated,

• Provide detailed background and contextual information,

• Provide well-reasoned justifications for findings of fact and law,

• Specify the regulatory action being taken and correlate it with the findings of fact and law, and

• Describe the rights of review or appeal of the persons involved

To satisfy these principles, we suggest that regulatory orders should satisfy four broad sets of requirements:

1. Informational requirements: Orders must include certain information (such as the names of the decision-makers).

2. Structural requirements: Orders should be structured in a logical manner. We suggest the following sequence: prefatory information, introductory statement, procedural history, issues, findings of fact, analysis, decision, sanctions, directions for compliance, and appeal and review processes.

3. Substantive requirements: Orders must demonstrate that the requirements of statutory and administrative law have been satisfied.

4. Stylistic requirements: Orders must be written in clear, concise, and comprehensible language.

The GOW indicators operationalise these into measurable variables.

Developing the GOW indicators

We have developed the GOW indicators based on the framework in the GOW Paper. One of the first use cases for these indicators was a set of 82 GOW indicators to study orders of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) (available here). Some examples, and how they relate to the principles and requirement categories identified in the GOW Paper, are in the table below.

These GOW indicators are intended to measure the completeness and quality of orders. They are not designed to determine whether a regulator reached the “correct” decision on merits.

Moreover, these GOW indicators are not intended to function as a fixed checklist applicable across all regulators and types of proceedings. While some GOW indicators are broadly applicable across regulators, the GOW indicators may also be modified to suit the regulator, the statutory framework, the type of violation, and the type of proceedings involved. Some examples are in the table below.

Weights

Not all deficiencies in an order are equally consequential. An order that omits the names of counsel is incomplete but not necessarily problematic; on the other hand, an order that fails to explain why sanctions were imposed raises a much more serious problem. To reflect such differences, we assign weighted scores to GOW indicators on a scale from 0 to 1. For example, whether the names of counsel are included is weighted at 0.25, while whether the reasons for imposing sanctions are explained is weighted at 1.

Recording findings

Recording responses for the indicators raise various methodological challenges: recording responses for some is relatively straightforward, while others require contextual interpretation and qualitative judgment. Similarly, different studies may require response formats and different thresholds for recording findings.

Accordingly, when applying GOW indicators, we also develop:

• An objective/subjective classification of the GOW indicators,

• Response formats for recording findings, and

• Sufficiency standards that specify what level of information is required for a finding to be recorded against an indicator.

Objective/ subjective

The GOW indicators can be classified into two categories: ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’:

• An objective indicator can be satisfied by the explicit presence of the required information, with little room for interpretation or disagreement. For example, “Are the names of decision-makers present?” is objective, since the information either is or is not present in the order.

• A subjective indicator requires contextual interpretation and qualitative assessment. For example, “Is there a clear, concise, and comprehensive summary of uncontested material facts?” is subjective because evaluators may reasonably differ on what constitutes a “material” fact, or whether the discussion is sufficiently clear and comprehensive.

This distinction helps identify which aspects of adjudicatory quality could be measured through relatively straightforward coding, and which require more interpretive evaluation.

Response formats

Response formats are the formats that may be adopted to record findings for GOW indicators. Some response formats, and the context in which they may be appropriate, are:

Closed responses

These responses may comprise values such as:

• ‘1’ or ‘Yes’ for a positive response;

• ‘0’ or ‘No’ for a negative response; and

• ‘99’ or ‘NA’ for situations where the indicator is inapplicable

These may be appropriate where:

• Responses can be objectively provided with a high degree of confidence, such as for objective indicators; and/ or

• Downstream analysis depends on simple values that can be analysed using quantitative methods.

Open responses

These responses do not use a closed set of values. They may:

• Be descriptive in nature, and non-conclusive;

• Provide an affirmative or negative response, with supporting reasons and source references; or

• Use terms such as ‘likely’, ‘possible’, or ‘probable’, or their inverse, that is, terms such as ‘unlikely’, to indicate a broad range, rather than a precise response.

These may be appropriate where:

• It is hard or impossible to draw definitive conclusions because of information insufficiency;

• Data is qualitative, unstructured, and open to interpretation; and/ or

• A final response requires interpretation and decision-making by an authority such as a court or tribunal.

Sufficiency standards

The level, type, extent, and adequacy of information that must be present in an order for a particular finding to be recorded against an indicator. While the choice of sufficiency standards, like the choice of response format, is contingent on context, it is also contingent on the choice of response format: closed response formats may require the articulation of very precise sufficiency standards, while open responses may not require the identification of very precise sufficiency standards.

Some examples of the sufficiency standards that may be chosen for various GOW indicators, and when they may be appropriate are:

• For the indicator ‘Are the names of decision-makers present?’, the chosen standard may be:

‘As long as names appear towards the very beginning or ending of the order, record a positive finding.’

This may be appropriate where:

• The names of decision-makers consistently appear in the designated locations.

OR

‘As long as names appear towards the very beginning or ending of the order, along with the designations of the decision-makers, record a positive finding.

This may be appropriate where:

• The names and designations of decision-makers consistently appear in the designated locations; and/ or

• Obtaining the names and/or designations is important for analysis.

• For the indicator “Is there a clear, concise, and comprehensive summary of uncontested material facts?”, the chosen standard may be:

‘As long as the uncontested material facts can be identified from statements scattered across the order, record a positive finding.’

This may be appropriate where:

• The focus is only on whether the facts are present somewhere in the order, rather than how they are presented;

• The downstream use of the information does not require the facts to be consolidated in one location; and/or

• The proceeding is preliminary in nature, such as an order under Section 26(2), where the expectation on the adjudicator to demonstrate detailed application of mind is comparatively lower.

OR

‘Record a positive finding only if the order contains a consolidated summary of uncontested material facts.’

This may be appropriate where the focus is on readability and structural coherence.

OR

‘Record a positive finding only if the order contains a clear, concise, and comprehensive summary of uncontested material facts in a designated location, such as the factual background section of the order.’

This may be appropriate where:

• The focus is on readability and structural coherence;

• The proceeding culminates in a definitive determination, such as an adjudication order imposing penalties, where a higher expectation of application of mind and structured reasoning is warranted.

Conclusion

Our GOW indicators support a structured methodology to measure the completeness of adjudicatory orders. The indicators are flexible by design, and the choice of indicators, weights, response formats, and sufficiency standards all depend on context. Each regulator operates under a different statutory framework, exercises different forms of adjudicatory power, and deals with different types of violations. A framework suitable for analysing SEBI orders may not be appropriate for studying tariff orders of electricity regulators or preliminary closure orders under Section 26(2) of the Competition Act, 2002. This also means that the process of developing and applying GOW indicators is iterative, and our work on the GOW indicators is constantly evolving.

- The authors are researchers at TrustBridge, and would like to thank Renuka Sane for her feedback.

CITATION

Natasha Aggarwal and Bhavin Patel, 2026. “Evaluating regulators’ orders: The good order writing indicators explained”, The Bridge, TrustBridge Rule of Law Foundation

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References

Chitrakshi Jain and others, 2025, “Examining the Performance of ERCs at APTEL,” The Leap Blog.

Natasha Aggarwal and others, 2025. “A guide to writing good regulatory orders,” Working Papers, Trustbridge Rule of Law Foundation.

Natasha Aggarwal and others, 2025, “Balancing Power and Accountability: An Evaluation of SEBI’s Adjudication of Insider Trading,” Working Paper, Trustbridge Rule of Law Foundation.