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BOD 304/2017Removal

A Delhi chartered accountant surfaced in CBI call transcripts. A decade on, the Board ordered removal and a fine.

9 min readJainam Shah

CBI call transcripts led ICAI to find a Delhi chartered accountant guilty of disreputable conduct and withholding information. The Board removed him for forty-five days and fined him ₹75,000.

Held
RemovalGuilty of professional misconduct
Forum
Board of Discipline (First Schedule)
Clauses
Item (2) of Part III of the First Schedule · Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule
Decided
punished
File no.
PPR/P/64/2014-DD/51/INF/2014/BOD/304/2017
Source
Original order (PDF)

A Delhi chartered accountant turned up in telephone conversations the Central Bureau of Investigation had recorded during an unrelated inquiry, apparently discussing accommodation entries and fake bills.1 A decade after the CBI passed those transcripts on to the Institute, the Board of Discipline found him guilty and removed his name from the Register.

What happened#

The Central Bureau of Investigation, investigating something else entirely, recorded telephone conversations involving a Delhi chartered accountant and passed transcripts of the calls, along with a forensic examination report, on to the Institute. What reached the Director (Discipline) was a self-contained note, not a complaint filed on the Institute's own prescribed form.
More than eight months passed before the Director (Discipline) issued a show cause notice, and even then the note itself was withheld until after the accountant's first reply. Over the next several years he sent five separate written replies, each time asking, without success, for a copy of the charge-sheet and investigation report behind the note.
Years into the enquiry, a prima facie opinion added a second charge alongside the one already under investigation, with no fresh notice ever issued for it. The accountant kept replying, arguing that the note had no legal standing, that the calls had been read out only in fragments, and that neither a witness nor the original recordings had ever been produced.
The Board of Discipline found the note, the forensic report and the calls transcript together sufficient, and held the accountant guilty on both counts. Weeks later he appeared before the Board in person, was placed on oath for the first time, and asked for a lenient sentence.
The sentencing order followed only years afterward, issued together with a batch of other pending punishment orders after a directive from the Delhi High Court. It removed the accountant's name from the Register for forty-five days and imposed a fine of seventy-five thousand rupees.

Two documents did the real work. One was the self-contained note the CBI forwarded — not a complaint filed on the Institute's own prescribed Form I, but a referral the Directorate chose to treat as information all the same.2 The other was a forensic examination report and a transcript of the calls, compiled afterwards. Together, the Board held, they were "sufficient evidences...to suggest that the conduct of the Respondent in allegedly being involved in providing accommodation entries, fake bills, etc. is unbecoming of a Chartered Accountant" (para 6).

The order that finally imposed punishment also records why it arrived so late: it was issued alongside a batch of other pending Section 21A(3) orders, following a Delhi High Court direction that dealt with the backlog generally rather than with this case.3

The two clauses#

Both sit in the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949, read with Section 22 of the Act, which defines what counts as misconduct in the first place.

  • Item (2) of Part III — failing to supply information, or comply with requirements, that the Institute or its Director (Discipline) called for.4 Not about the quality of any work — only about answering when asked.
  • Item (2) of Part IV — the Act's catch-all for conduct that brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute, whether or not it has anything to do with professional work.5

The Board found the accountant guilty under both.

What the accountant said#

He raised objections to how the case had reached the Board at all, and then to what it actually proved.

On the process, his case was that no formal complaint had ever been filed against him — only a self-contained note, which he argued carried no legal sanctity under the Institute's own procedure. He pointed out that the show cause notice had come more than eight months after the note was received, that the note itself was withheld from him until after his first reply, and that the Part III charge had surfaced only in the 2017 prima facie opinion, years after the original notice, with no separate show cause notice ever issued for it — so he had never had a proper opportunity to answer that specific charge before being found guilty of it.

On the merits, he argued that he had in fact supplied everything asked of him: five separate written replies over several years, filed even though the Directorate never produced the charge-sheet or investigation report he kept asking for. On the calls themselves, he said only fragments had ever been read out, stripped of a longer conversation that was really about other people's conduct around him, not his own; that no witness had been produced to prove anything; and that the CBI had never handed over the original recordings, only a transcript of calls that were, by the time of the hearing, more than a decade old.

What the Board held#

The Board did not answer these arguments afresh. It recorded only that the accountant had raised the same contentions at the hearing, and that they "had been duly countered in the findings of the Board" (para 5) — a report this order does not reproduce.

On the substance, it held:

there are sufficient evidences such as self-contained note of the CBI, forensic examination report, calls transcript, etc. to suggest that the conduct of the Respondent in allegedly being involved in providing accommodation entries, fake bills, etc. is unbecoming of a Chartered Accountant and not befitting of the highest ethical standards expected of him (para 6)

and went on to hold him guilty of both counts, read together with Section 22 of the Act (para 6).

The order#

the Board decided to remove the name of [the accountant] from the Register of Members for a period of Forty Five (45) days and also imposed a fine of Rs. 75,000/- (Rupees Seventy Five thousand only) upon him payable within a period of 60 days from the date of receipt of the Order (para 7)6

A forty-five-day removal paired with a fine sits above a bare reprimand on the scale the Board works with, but well short of a lasting removal from the Register.7 Three Board members signed this order.8

Why it matters#

This section is ours, not the Board's.

A "self-contained note" is not a complaint, but the Board can still convict on it. No Form I complaint was ever filed here — only a note the CBI forwarded. Do not assume an informal referral carries less weight than a formal one; treat any communication from the Institute as live from the day it arrives.

A new charge can appear mid-enquiry, and answering the first one will not cover it. The Part III charge surfaced only in the 2017 prima facie opinion, years after the original notice. Read every prima facie opinion for clauses you have not yet been asked about, not just the ones you have already answered.

Written replies are your record of having supplied information. The accountant counted five separate replies as proof he had answered every request; the Board still found him guilty under the very clause about withholding it. Keep dated copies of everything you send back — you may need them years later, before a Board that will not revisit the underlying findings.

This summarises a public order and links the primary source. It is general information, not legal or professional advice.

Footnotes#

  1. The respondent was CA. Radhey Shyam Bansal (M.No. 091903), of Delhi. The Central Bureau of Investigation supplied the note, the forensic report and the calls transcript that started the case; it appears in the order only as "the Informant," and is not a chartered accountant or a party against whom any misconduct was alleged. ↩

  2. The order does not describe the CBI's note as filed in Form "I", the form the Chartered Accountants (Procedure of Investigations of Professional and Other Misconduct and Conduct of Cases) Rules, 2007 prescribe for a complaint under Rule 3. The accountant argued that a note of this kind could not properly be treated as "Information" under Rule 7 of those Rules; the Board did not address that argument separately in this order (para 5). ↩

  3. This order records that it was "issued pursuant to the Order dated 29th April 2024 passed by Hon'ble High Court of Delhi in W.P.(C) 5247/2024 namely ICAI Vs R. Vinod Kumar & others." That writ petition concerned a backlog of pending Section 21A(3) punishment orders generally; this order does not say anything further about what the petition itself decided, only that this punishment order was issued pursuant to it. ↩

  4. Item (2) of Part III of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 covers a member who does not supply the information called for, or does not comply with the requirements asked for, by the Institute, the Council or any of its Committees, the Director (Discipline), the Board of Discipline, the Disciplinary Committee, the Quality Review Board or the Appellate Authority. ↩

  5. Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 deems a member guilty of other misconduct if, in the opinion of the Council, his conduct brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute, whether or not it is connected with his professional work. ↩

  6. The order names the respondent in full at this point — "CA. Radhey Shyam Bansal (M.No.091903)" — and again a few words later as "him". This page substitutes "[the accountant]" for the first of those; no other word in the quotation has been altered. ↩

  7. Section 21A(3) lets the Board of Discipline reprimand a member, remove his name from the Register for a period, or fine him — or, as in this order, combine a fine with removal. Check the current sub-section before relying on any figure or cap on the removal period; both have been amended over time. ↩

  8. The Board that heard the accountant on 9 March 2020 and passed this order on 21 May 2024 comprised CA. Prasanna Kumar D (Presiding Officer), Mrs. Rani Nair (IRS, Retd.) (Government Nominee) and CA. Durgesh Kumar Kabra (Member). This order does not name the Board that signed the underlying findings of 30 January 2020. ↩

Written by Jainam Shah. Found guilty under Item (2) of Part III of the First Schedule and Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule; the Board ordered a removal. General information, not legal or professional advice — read the order itself before relying on it.

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