Proposal for CPT pass criteria to 30%

Common Proficiency Test - Proposed amendment in the Chartered Accountants Regulations, 1988

The President in his column (President’s page) in the December, 2010 issue of the Journal, `The Chartered Accountant’ has inter-alia conveyed the decision of the Council as under:

Common Proficiency Test: The Council at its 300th meeting reviewed the requirement for passing the Common Proficiency Test and decided that a candidate shall have to obtain at one sitting, a minimum of 30 per cent marks (out of maximum marks specified by the Council for each Section) and a minimum of 50 per cent marks in the aggregate of all the Sections, subject to the principle of negative marking, in a manner as may be specified by the Council from time to time subject to proposed amendments in the regulations approved by the Central Government.

Upon reading the above write-up, the Institute has been receiving telephone calls from anxious students, their parents and members. It has been brought to our knowledge that SMS/email chain have started circulating giving some misinformation about the applicability of the proposal for December, 2010 CPT examination.

It is hereby clarified that as mentioned in the above write-up, the decision of the Council will be made applicable only after the Chartered Accountants Regulations, 1988 are amended by the Central Government, for which a proposal will be sent to the Central Government shortly.

It is further clarified that the process of Central Government’s approval includes consideration by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Law Ministry, consideration by the Council of ICAI of public comments on the draft amended Regulations, final approval of the proposed amendments by the Central Government and publication of the same in the Gazette of India.

As such, the above decision taken by the Council, as rightly conveyed by the President, cannot and will not be made applicable for the CPT examination scheduled for 19th December, 2010.

It is once again reiterated that the students and other stakeholders should take cognizance of the official announcements only (published in the Chartered Accountants Journal, CA Students newsletter and www.icai.org)