Admission to IPCC Small Amendment Big Impact

ICAI has amended Regulation 28E of the Chartered Accountants Regulations, 1988 vide Notification No. 1-CA(7)/167/2014 dated 23rd January, 2015.

On reading this sentence few questions crop up.

What is Regulation 28E?  What is the amendment?  What is the impact of the amendment?

All these questions are answered below.

Regulation 28E deals with Admission to Intermediate (Integrated Professional Competence) Examination) called IPCC for short.

Sub-regulation (1) of clause (b) prescribes the minimum period of study course for appearing in the IPCC examination.

The said sub-regulation, before amendment, read as under:

“No candidate shall be admitted to IPCC examination unless he produces a certificate to the effect that he has undergone a study course, for a period not less than nine months, as may be specified by the Council for the relevant level(s), as on the first day of the month in which the examination is held, in the manner as may be specified by the Council from time to time”

In simple words a candidate desirous of appearing for the IPCC examination has to undergo a minimum study course for NINE months before he can appear for the examination.

For example – A candidate desirous of appearing for the IPCC examination in May’15 should have undergone a study course for a minimum period of nine months as on 1st May’15. In other words he should have registered for the course on or before 2nd August, 2014.

Problem: Example – Result of CPT examination held in June, 2014 was declared on 16th July, 2014. A student has less than 20 days to complete all the formalities for registration to IPCC. A student registering after 2nd Aug’14 would complete nine months of study AFTER 1st May’15 and would be eligible to appear in Nov’15 examinations thereby wasting 5 precious months.

Now the amendment

The amendment is very simple – it replaces the words “nine months” by “eight months”.

Impact – Now a candidate desirous of appearing for the IPCC examination has to undergo a study course for minimum EIGHT months before he can appear for the examination.

What is the implication?

The amendment is applicable with immediate effect. Therefore, students who registered themselves after 2nd Aug’14 but on or before 2nd Sep’14 are now eligible to appear in the IPCC examinations to be held in May’15 (they would have been eligible to appear in Nov’15 examination).  They save 5 months!!!! Henceforth, students get more than a month post declaration of results to complete the registration formalities.

Please spread this to all students who registered themselves in Aug’14 or Sep’14 (on or before 2nd Sep’14) so that they may benefit from the amendment and appear in May’15 exams

Source: www.icai.org