In the wake of a chartered accountancy student’s arrest last week for allegedly forging documents using a CA’s stamps and seals, the Pune branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), now suspects the accused may have misused stamps and seals of more chartered accountants in the city.
Shahajahan Khurshid Khan allegedly made duplicates of stamps and seals of CA Sunil Shankar Yelol with Yelol’s ICAI membership number for tax audit of M/S Jagtap Automobiles and duped Yelol of Rs 9.80 lakh.
The incident came to light when Jagtap Automobiles decided to hand over their audit work to another CA, Vijay Anpat. Following the CA protocol, Anpat called up Yelol to obtain his no-objection certificate about the handover. Yelol realised that Jagtap was not his client, but the stamps and seals carried his membership number.
According to the ICAI legal advisor, advocate VB Khatri, Khan may have used the stamps and seals for people who had applied for bank loans to get TDS refunds and so on.
“Khan’s police statement mentions that he has been operating for the last three years. He might have used the stamps on many other financial statements. We suspect that the fraud could run into crores of rupees,” Khatri said.
SB Zaware, member, central council of ICAI, said, “Considering that Khan may have misused stamps of other CAs too and to speed up the investigation in this matter, we appeal to all the chartered accountants in the city to contact the institute and record their statements with the police. Khan has been remanded in magisterial custody.
“We have been requesting the police to recover the duplicate stamps and seals used by Khan. We have also asked them to find the hard disk of Khan’s computer,” he added.
“The ICAI appeals that financial statements prepared with the help or advise of Shahajahan Khurshid Khan by any other person with original documents for verification be submitted to the chairman, (Pune Branch), ICAI, fifth floor, Amber chambers, 28-A, Budhwar Peth,” said a statement.
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