The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has taken a number of initiatives to converge auditing in India with global accounting standards. Amarjit Chopra, president, ICAI, in an interview with Neha Pal, shares his views on some these initiatives and the need to punish auditors and auditing firms responsible for frauds. Excerpts:
How far has the convergence of the Indian accounting standards with international financial reporting standards (IFRS) progressed?
We are going ahead with the convergence of Indian accounting standards with IFRS and we hope that the government meets the April 11 deadline. We have also started a 90-hour certificate course for our members to train them on IFRS.
Is ICAI considering making the names of auditors found guilty in scams public?
Yes, the ICAI council is considering making public the names of auditors found guilty in scams and once the council approves this, we will do it immediately.
What does ICAI plan to handle auditing firms who have been involved in a fraud?
ICAI wants the government to bring in a provision to bar tainted firms from taking up new assignments for a fixed period, in case any of its partners has been held responsible in a fraud. Currently, if a partner of any firm is held responsible in a fraud, the firm disassociates itself from him and later counts him as a consultant. The government needs to take a stand.
What is the reason behind the falling percentage of students who qualify CA exams? Why has the institute started the trend of making questions in all the subjects compulsory?
ICAI has pushed the bar higher this time around. Until May 2009, one didn’t have to solve the entire paper, but now we want students to answer all the questions so that he should have complete knowledge about the course. The good part is that we now provide a holiday between CA papers, something that was not done earlier.
Is ICAI planning to initiate talks with RBI in order to provide adequate time for the auditing of PSU banks?
ICAI wants RBI to extend the number of days given to auditors for auditing PSU banks. Currently, auditors get a time of only 5-6 days to prepare the audit reports of these banks. Auditors should, at least, be given a month’s time to prepare the audit report, since this is a time-consuming process and it cannot be carried out in just 5-6 days.
congratulations to our Hon’ble President CA Amorjit Chopra and all our council members taking decisions in all matters for the image of the profession and members of CA fraternity .Well done, try to keep our flag high. keep it up.
CA. Subhash Chandra Podder.( Membership no.12073)
The initiatives by the Hon’ble President against the tainted firms and its partners are highly commendable! I would like to suggest ICAI to create a ‘pre-approval’ mechanism before any firm take up assignment above a certain value. Also, firms should be made to provide quarterly revenue and cost numbers and assignment wins above a certain value to ICAI to have better balance between ‘professional ethics vs.commercial wins.’
Congratulations to the new President of the ICAI. We hope that he will leave no stone unturned to even expose some of his predecessors, if found to have been involved in some scams.