The ministry of corporate affairs(MCA) will take a call against the audit and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers only after receiving the fact-finding reports of the Rs 10,000-crore Satyam accounting fraud from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) on January 11, said MCA minister Salman Khurshid.
“The accounting firm has already been barred from undersigning the balance sheets of company and a suitable action would be contemplated upon the receiving of report from ICAI,” he added.
Terming the Satyam scandal as an eye opener in the history of corporate India, Khurshid said the New Companies Bill that is under review of the standing committee of the Parliament is being armed with suitable provisions on corporate governance issues taking cue from the Satyam case. The New Companies Bill replacing the existing Companies Act 1956 would have provisions to deal with issues of corporate accountability and transparency, he said. To a question on bestowing statutory status to Serious Fraud Investigation Office(SFIO), he said the new Bill contains briefs on various powers of SFIO in dealing with corporate misdemeanor.
He stressed on the need to have a softer provisions in SFIO to discipline corporate entities indulging in crimes of lesser degree. The minister called for a counselling-based approach in correcting the minor wrongdoings of corporates as the government wishes to have a healthy industry-government relationship. Considering the current resource constraints, the statutory status should not lead to overburdening of the courts with corporate cases, he added.
