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BOD 489/2018Removal

A CBI probe named a chartered accountant a conspirator in a trust fraud. Repeated non-appearance brought removal.

7 min readJainam Shah

A CBI probe into a fraudulent charitable-trust scheme named a chartered accountant as a conspirator. He never appeared to answer the case, and the Board removed him from the Register for three months.

Held
RemovalGuilty of professional misconduct
Forum
Board of Discipline (First Schedule)
Clauses
Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule
Decided
punished
File no.
PPR/P/348/17/DD/334/INF/2017/BOD/489/2018
Source
Original order (PDF)

This case had no complainant at all. It began with a CBI investigation into a fraud running through a charitable trust's name, and the Institute took up on its own motion what the investigation had found about one of its members.1

What happened#

The CBI investigates a large-scale fraud built around the name of an existing charitable trust. Fake bank accounts are opened in the trust's name at several banks, and donations running into crores are deposited into them and then routed out again through a chain of bogus family trusts, before being sent back to the donor companies, minus a commission, to support false tax exemption claims.
The investigation identifies a chartered accountant as one of the scheme's principal conspirators — introducing account holders, filling in account-opening forms himself, and lending his own residential address to PAN card applications for trusts he controlled as trustee. Bank officials, handwriting analysis and recovered documents all point the same way. He is chargesheeted for criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery, arrested, and released on bail.
ICAI opens a disciplinary case against him on the strength of the CBI's findings. An earlier round of proceedings is set aside on appeal for a procedural defect and sent back for a fresh investigation.
Over several years the Board lists the matter for hearing again and again. Each time, the member fails to appear or asks for another adjournment, citing his age, his health, and incomplete access to the case papers. A letter sent through his spouse argues only that he was not a member of the Institute on the relevant date; it does not address the allegations at all.
After seven such hearings, the Board finally proceeds without him. It weighs the CBI's findings, his complete silence on the merits, and an earlier removal already ordered against him by a court, and holds him guilty in his absence.

The case turned on evidence the member never once tried to rebut. Bank officials from two institutions said he had personally introduced account holders or filled in account-opening forms; his own address appeared on PAN applications for trusts recovered from a co-accused's premises; and handwriting analysis and witness statements pointed the same way (para 2). None of that was ever contested on the facts — only procedure was.

The clause#

Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule catches conduct that brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute, whether or not it arises from the member's professional work, read with Section 22 of the Act, which extends "professional or other misconduct" beyond the Schedules to conduct of this kind.2 The charge here was not a professional lapse in an audit or a return — it was a criminal fraud that happened to have been committed by a chartered accountant.

The Board found the charge established and held him guilty, in his absence, of other misconduct under this head.

What the respondent said#

He never answered the allegations on their merits, at any stage. His written submissions, made years before the final hearing, raised only procedure: that the case had dragged on since 2008 with long gaps, that an earlier order against him had been set aside on appeal and sent back for a proper investigation, that he had not been given the complete set of documents relied on, and that he had once received roughly 300 pages of material only a day before a hearing, which his age and health made it impossible to review in time (paras 5–6). A communication sent through his spouse, closer to the end, argued only that he had not been a member of the Institute on the date the opinion was framed — nothing about whether the underlying allegations were true (para 8).

What the Board held#

On the procedural objections, the Board found nothing that stopped the case from continuing:

disciplinary proceedings can validly be continued in respect of the misconduct committed by any Chartered Accountant during the period when he was a member of the Institute, irrespective of the fact as to whether he continues to be a member at the time of inquiry or not (para 8)

On the substance, it had the CBI's findings and nothing on the other side. The Board also noted "the Respondent's past record, including prior disciplinary actions and removal from the Register of Members by order of the Hon'ble High Court of Allahabad" (para 9) before concluding:

the Board... held the Respondent 'Guilty' of Other Misconduct under Clause (2) of Part-IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 read with Section 22 of the said Act (para 10)

The order#

the Board hereby resolves to remove [the Respondent's] name from the Register of Members for a period of three (3) months.

The order names him in full at that point; the brackets above stand in for the name.3 Removal for a fixed period sits above a reprimand and a fine on the Board's punishment scale.4 The Board reached even the punishment hearing without him: he did not appear, an adjournment sought on his behalf was refused, and the Board proceeded ex parte on the view that non-appearance across seven separate listings did not show a genuine intention to participate.5

Why it matters#

This section is ours, not the Board's.

A disciplinary case does not need a living complainant. ICAI can, and did here, act on findings from an outside criminal investigation with no member of the public bringing the complaint at all. Conduct outside your practice can still reach the Register.

Membership status at the time of the inquiry is irrelevant; conduct during membership is what counts. The Board rejected the one substantive argument raised — that he was not a member on the relevant date — for exactly this reason. Do not rely on a lapsed or changed status to escape a case about something done while you held it.

Silence on the merits, repeated across seven hearings, reads as an admission by conduct. Every adjournment here was about procedure or health, never about the facts. If you genuinely dispute an allegation, put that dispute on record early — non-appearance forecloses the very findings a respondent most needs to contest.

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

Footnotes#

  1. CA. Dinesh Kumar Agrawal (M. No. 016535), Agra was the respondent. There was no complainant: the case was taken up by the Institute on its own motion ("in Re:") on the strength of a Central Bureau of Investigation probe (RC No. G(E)/2005/EOW-I/DLI) into fraud built around the name of the Indian Medical Scientific Research Foundation, a charitable trust based in Rajkot. ↩

  2. Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 covers a member who is guilty of any misconduct, whether or not connected with professional work, that renders him unfit to practise or brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute. Section 22 of the Act provides that "professional or other misconduct" is not confined to what the Schedules list, and extends to conduct of this kind. ↩

  3. The order names the respondent in full at this point; the words in brackets replace that name. Nothing else in this quotation has been altered. ↩

  4. Section 21A(3) gives the Board a graduated set of punishments: a reprimand, a fine, or removal of the member's name from the Register for a limited period — the punishment imposed here. Check the current sub-section before relying on any figure or period, as these have been amended over time. ↩

  5. The findings, dated 8th December 2025, were signed by CA. Rajendra Kumar P (Presiding Officer), Ms. Dolly Chakrabarty, IAAS (Retd.) (Government Nominee) and CA. Priti Savla (Member), following a final hearing on 27th October 2025 at which the respondent was absent — the seventh hearing listed in the matter. The same three passed the punishment order on 30th December 2025, after a communication dated 19th December 2025 gave the respondent an opportunity to be heard, which he did not take up. ↩

Written by Jainam Shah. Found guilty under 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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