Members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India prefer a status quo on the composition of the disciplinary committee of the institute that looks into lapses and irregularities committed by its members.
At present, the disciplinary committee consists of five members — three chartered accountants and two government nominees. The presiding officer is a council member. There are four benches of the disciplinary committee.
The government introduced The Chartered Accountants, the Cost and Works Accountants and the Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in the Lok Sabha on December 17.
The bill seeks to alter the composition of the disciplinary committee so that there will be three non-chartered accountants and two chartered accountants on the committee. The presiding officer can no longer be a member of the institute and instead has to be a government nominee.
The bill was referred to the parliamentary standing committee on finance on December 21. ICAI president Debashis Mitra on Tuesday said the bill includes several suggestions from the institute but there are some points of objection on which representations have been already made.
“Our argument was that the auditing standards, accounting standards, income tax, GST, these are extremely technical subjects. Whoever is giving orders and judgement on these, if they do not have hold over these subjects, how are they to give a fair judgement.
“We have great respect for the two government nominees. We have said — ask the existing nominees, the ones that the government has appointed, do they have any grievance against us? If they say that the things are fine and there is no grievance against the institute’s disciplinary system, then a change is not fair,” Mitra said.
“Many of the contents of the bill have been our recommendations. Today we have no power to take action against a firm of chartered accountants. We can take action against an individual member. The bill allows taking action against firms. It has also raised the penal consequences,” he said.
Mitra added that the institute has started sensitising its members ahead of the start of the bank audits from April.
“If it is found that there is a big fraud and the auditor has turned a blind eye, then it affects the profession adversely,” Mitra said.
Are the CAS is not a party in the hifi fraud be in bank or in the company.
They should themselves judge they had not performed as watch dog.
This is why perhaps people will not support the CAS
True
It is right that govt in fact takes over the functioning of the ICAI. The ICAI has fine nothing but bringing out corrupt CA. They delay action because the CA may be a Central Council Member. There is no transparency in any of the activities . The Govt should go ahead with the bill and implement the same. Few CA have literally cornered all work.
Infact, ethically, all the Committee Members need to be non-Chartered Accountants.
True