Sharply critical of the existing corporate gover nance practices, Sebi chief Ajay Tyagi on Friday said “indepen dent directors are not indepen dent“ and audit committees are not working but admitted he does not have a solution to fix the lacunae. Pitching for a “common stewardship code“ for institutional investors, he said the worrying part is that there is no such code for these entities once they become significant shareholders in companies. Tyagi, who took over the reins as markets regulator last month, said there are too many lacunae with respect to the concept of independent directors with many having “no commitment to any cause“. “I must admit I have no solutions on what should be done but it will be anyone's case that existing system has lot of lacunae,“ he said here. Mincing no words, Tyagi said, some independent directors are appointed at the mercy of promoters “(with) no prescribed qualifications or procedures, favouritism, (many are from) closed clubs (such a