Certificates and documents attested by Chartered Accountants are looked upon as a reliable source of authentic information and as an evidence of compliance with the various rules, regulations and stipulated procedures under different statutes.
However, there have many instances of Financial statements and certificates being issued by non-members or members not holding COP recently.
It has been observed that in many instances financial statements and documents are being certified/attested by third persons in lieu of our CA members. These statements mislead various authorities/other stakeholders who rely on them.
To address above, an innovative concept of Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) has been conceptualized and developed by the Professional Development Committee of ICAI which was also being demanded by various regulators. UDIN is a unique number, which will be generated for every document certified/attested by Practising Chartered Accountants and registered with the UDIN portal.
To address this, the Professional Development Committee (PDC) of ICAI has introduced UDIN for documents attested & certified by Chartered Accountants. UDIN is a 15-digit unique no. which would be generated by the system for every document certified/ attested by CAs. Every CA in practice who would be certifying or attesting any document would have to sign up on the UDIN portal(www.udin.icai.org) to register it and generate a UDIN.
UDIN has been introduced is to curb the menace of fake and forged certificates issued by people who are not Chartered Accountant in practice. A big example of it was seen somewhere in case of PNB Scam and other financial blunders in the country.
Accordingly, the Council at its 374th meeting decided to implement UDIN, therefore it has been made recommendatory with effect from 01st July, 2018, and later on, it would be made mandatory.
UDIN would facilitate Regulators, Government and third parties in verification of the authenticity of CA-attested certificates. Though this facility is currently introduced on a recommendatory basis, ICAI is expecting to make it compulsory in the near future soon.
To know more about UDIN, you can read the following article: ICAI will keep records of attestations by CAs
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