HAL had no freedom. First, it was under pressure of privatisation by the government due to lobbying by the private sector companies. Than government withdraw its cash reserves and HAL had to take loans from SBI to pay salaries. Than there was fight between HAL, ADA and DRDO over the design changes made by HAL on Tejas.
Then there was pressure from government to hand over the manufacturing of Tejas fighters parts to private sector companies which delayed the Tejas programme by 5 years. Those private sector companies selected to manufacturing of parts of Tejas were to be trained and handfed by HAL at its own cost. Technology transferred to private companies.
The parts manufactured by the private sector companies were not up to the mark and HAL had to manufacture them in house.