Earnings management has been known to be associated with inter alia audit quality, corporate governance, issue of securities, managerial motivations and tax incentives. The relationship with corporate governance, while not as direct as some of the other factors, is crucial because financial reporting is an observable outcome of the efficacy of corporate governance. Yet, research linking the two has been scarce, particularly in emerging economies. In this study, we focus on the association of governance variables and cross-listing with discretionary accrual as a proxy for earnings management.    Our sample consists of 319 Indian non-financial firms that are a part of NSE500 index. The study has been conducted for the period of 2003-04 to 2017-18. To capture the extent of earnings management, we use the modified Jones time-series model for discretionary accruals. Our analysis confirms the propositions of agency theory. We show that institutional ownership, board independence, size and cross-listing are negatively related to the discretionary accruals whereas promoter holdings encourage discretionary practices. The direction of the association observed depicts that stronger governance results in stricter recording of the fundamental earnings process, thereby reducing the error induced by the accounting system. The paper examines the impact of cross-listing on earnings management along with corporate governance. Current study extends earlier works on establishing the accuracy of the accounting system which will be helpful to investors, regulators and policy makers.