Professional Negligence in Concurrent Audit

This query is : Resolved

Mandar Joshi (Querist)
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07 August 2021 Case:
In a branch of a bank, there was a complaint lodged by one customer about the opening of the account without his consent. The concurrent audit came across the complaint and while enquiring with the branch, it came to know that the account was opened and closed in last year and the complaint was lodged in the subsequent year. Further, the complaint was forwarded to the legal dept of the bank and the reply was communicated to the customer. The customer never came back later. Also, there were not many transactions in that account.
The concurrent auditor, in his best judgement, assessed the risk of the incidence and was of the opinion that since the account is closed in the last year itself, there is no risk to the bank. Thus, he did not put it in his audit report.
Later, in the subsequent year, RBI audit officer pointed out that there was a complaint but it was not mentioned in the concurrent audit report. Does this amount to professional negligence? What would be the consequences on the auditor?

CA R SEETHARAMAN

CA R SEETHARAMAN (Expert)
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07 August 2021 Yes, it's professional negligence. Opening and closing bank account without the knowledge of the concerned person is risk to the bank.
The auditor may not be given any future concurrent audit of banks.

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