Satyam scam: ICAI to hold disciplinary meetings in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) will hold all its Disciplinary Committee meetings on Satyam Computers multi-crore accounting scam henceforth in Hyderabad, ICAI Vice-President G Ramaswamy, Vice-President said on Monday.

At present, the ICAI is in the process of framing charges on two employees of Satyam namely Vadlamni Srinivas, former CFO and V Prabhakar Gupta, former internal auditor, Satyam and two former auditors of PricewaterhouseCoopers, S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri.

"The Delhi High Court order issued last month clearly states that criminal proceedings and investigations related to professional misconduct are two different issues. It also asked the auditors to appear for the ICAI's meetings so that we can proceed with the case," said Ramaswamy on the sidelines of International Taxation Conference, 'Jnanadeep' organised by the ICAI.

After the Satyam scam broke out in Janury 2009, apex body of Chartered Accountants found the four auditors guilty of misconduct. The CBI in its chargesheet also alleged that the external auditors were paid hefty sums to cook up company accounts, thus becoming part of the crime.

He said that the Institute will hold its next meeting in third week of February. " PWC and auditors who got bail, are appearing before the special court every day. As a result they are unable to attend the Committee's proceedings. Henceforth, we will conduct all related meetings in Hyderabad," Ramswamy said.

ICAI's high-powered committee in its report had earlier said, prima facie, the conduct of the auditors both from Pricewaterhouse, which was the then statutory auditor of Satyam, and Satyam's internal audit team, was found negligent.

Meanwhile, ICAI expressed surprise over the delay in implementing international accounting norms, IFRS. According to Amarjit Chopra, president, ICAI, the norms were decided by a core group in which all the industry associations, including FICCI, FAPCCI and Assocham, were part of the core group, which prepared the IFRS norms.

"We did our job and submitted the same. We don't understand why some industry associations are now raising concerns over implementation," he said. Last month, FICCI has asked the government to delay the implementation of IFRS citing the April, 2011 deadline as highly unworkable and unfair.