Why ICAI stays quiet on PwC?
PriceWaterhouse partners S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri have been arrested in the Satyam scam but the Institute of chartered accountants of India (ICAI), citing lack of evidence, has taken no action yet.
The PwC partners have been in custody for over three days now but ICAI is still quiet against the alleged partners.
The Institute says that police arrests do not provide enough evidence to take any action against its members.
Ved Jain, president of ICAI, said, “Police arrests is for the purpose of investigation only. It’s nothing beyond that. You will agree that whatever the statements are made are not to be considered as part of evidence in the court of law. So, for taking action under my law there is enough mechanism that we follow and we will carry out investigation at our level.”
ICAI further says that the law gives the institute a limited mandate under which it can function and does not allow all chartered accountant defaults to be governed by the body.
“There is a limited sphere where we operate. The institution does not have the mandate to punish people for forgery, cheating and other offenses that are covered under the Indian penal code. We are only concerned with the licenses."
Now, as the Satyam story unfolds, it is also bringing some realities to the surface in terms of justice to the offenders.
The ICAI, which is projected to be taking care of all issues in the accounting world, is actually tied under the ambit of law for showing results.
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